The nuclear energy movement in the 1970s was closely affiliated with the nuclear weapons movement. As one indicator of the latter, the phrase "ban the bomb" was already peaking in 1963, as the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty was being proposed: <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ban+the+bomb&y...> (Google Ngram viewer)

A similar search for "anti-nuclear movement" shows a later peak, in the late 1970s, which would correspond with the Three Mile Island incident (1979): <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=anti-nuclear+m...>

Essentially, nuclear power had a significant public-image problem, and it got markedly worse just as embargo-based oil shortages were peaking for a second (and far more significant) time, with the Iranian Oil Embargo (also 1979): <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_oil_crisis>