The New Face of Nuclear Energy Is Miss America

The New Face of Nuclear Energy Is Miss America

The soon to be nuclear fuels engineer is trying to help the industry recapture public support

Grace Stanke celebrated her birthday this past spring with a visit to a Georgia nuclear power plant.

By Jennifer HillerFollow

Sept. 23, 2023 10:00 am ET

Does the U.S. need more nuclear power? Miss America thinks so.

So do Oliver Stone, Elon Musk and Sam Altman.

Atomic energy is elbowing its way back into the conversation about future energy supplies, with backers in the Biden administration and oil and gas industries alike.

It has also re-entered the American zeitgeist thanks to movies, billionaire backers and a pageant icon.

Supporters of splitting atoms to make electricity as a way to fight climate change include Stone, who just released a documentary about nuclear power; Musk, who frequently calls himself a “believer”; and Altman, the head of the artificial-intelligence startup OpenAI, who plans to take a nuclear power startup public.

Grace Stanke, the reigning Miss America, is on a charm offensive for the industry as part of a year-long publicity tour.

Grace Stanke after she was crowned Miss America in December 2022.

“Why isn’t this being shouted from the rooftops?” asked Stanke, a 21-year-old nuclear engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is too Wisconsin-nice to shout, but in more than 20 states so far she has touted clean energy and nuclear medicine at schools, nursing homes, a state legislature and once on a water-skiing podcast.

“It’s the industry that saved my dad twice from cancer,” Stanke said, referring to radiation and other treatments. “It powers 20% of America.”

Stanke spoke at the World Nuclear Association’s symposium in London this month and aims to remain an industry voice even after she crowns the next Miss America. She is completing her last elective class online and has accepted a job with Constellation Energy, which owns the nation’s largest collection of nuclear power plants. The job, which will start in 2024, will include a mix of technical work—as a nuclear fuels engineer—and public advocacy.

America’s nuclear power sector has for decades faced public-relations challenges, burdened by high costs, long construction timelines, plant closures and concern over disasters such as Fukushima and radioactive waste.

Its Hollywood image includes giant mutants, the HBO series “Chernobyl” and the atomic- weapons race in the summer blockbuster “Oppenheimer.” Springfield Nuclear Power Plant employee Homer Simpson dropped a doughnut into a reactor core to try to make the pastry bigger.

“It’s always playing the villain,” Stanke said. “It’s what created Godzilla.”

Godzilla appears in Stone’s new documentary, “Nuclear Now,” though it argues that nuclear power is an obvious way to reduce the impact of climate change. It is a similar message to Stanke’s with a crustier delivery.

“We have to build and build fast,” Stone said in an interview. “What’s wrong with nuclear energy was never wrong. It was a brilliant, brilliant gift that we turned our back on. Americans get bored. They want a new car. They want a new TV. They’ve got to have constant technological change, but we have to ask ourselves, what’s wrong with the original evidence of nuclear power?”

Lee Merlin, known as Miss Atomic Bomb, was photographed in the 1950s outside Las Vegas. PHOTO: DON ENGLISH/LAS VEGAS NEWS BUREAU

At one time atomic energy had a glitzy image, inspiring mushroom-cloud hairstyles and starburst-patterned home décor. In a 1957 Walt Disney television presentation called “Our Friend the Atom” atomic energy was portrayed as a genie—“Here with my right hand, I give you the magic fire of the atom”—whose destructive force could be controlled for good.

Tourists in the 1950s flocked to the desert near Las Vegas to watch bomb tests. In a publicity photo of “Miss Atomic Bomb,” a showgirl wears a bathing suit decorated with a cottony mushroom cloud.

“It was exciting because it was American,” Spencer Weart, physicist and author of “The Rise of Nuclear Fear,” said. “It was a thumb in the eye to the Communists and at the same time it was seen as something that would bring vast economic benefits. It was the future. It was going to be run by nuclear energy.”

The advent and proliferation of the hydrogen bomb during the Cold War changed public perception, leading to the antinuclear movement, Weart said. A former Miss America, 1951’s Yolande Betbeze Fox, joined the antinukes movement. By the 1960s, objections to weapons started to migrate to nuclear power, later solidified by plant accidents.

Americans still hold ambivalent views on the technology and are far more supportive of wind and solar energy, though opinion is shifting, according to the Pew Research Center. Around 57% of Americans favor more nuclear power plants, up from 43% in 2020, according to a Pew survey released in August.

The industry now has a shot at billions of dollars in federal funding through the climate-focused Inflation Reduction Act, the 2021 infrastructure law and government-backed loans for new projects because of its ability to provide 24-7 power without greenhouse-gas emissions.

Investors in the dozens of startups pursuing smaller reactor designs include Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft; Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook; and Altman, who thinks more nuclear power will be needed in part for artificial intelligence. Musk has been calling on the utility industry to build more generation and called himself an advocate for fission at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council in May.

It has been the topic of TED Talks and popular social-media accounts. This past spring, Stanke posted a photo of her 21st birthday celebration, spent traveling to and touring the Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, which was on her wish list of appearances as Miss America. Another highlight: a tour of the Palo Verde Generating Station in Arizona.

More-typical appearance requests for a Miss America might include a USO tour or a trip to the White House, said tour and appearance manager Liz Brown. Those who travel with Stanke have had to swap out their dress clothes and heels “for jeans, boots and hard hats for all of the nuclear plant visits,” Brown said.

“That’s the beauty of it,” said Kathleen Barrón, executive vice president and chief strategy officer at Constellation, which employed Stanke for a college work-study program. “It’s an unexpected messenger.”

One of Stanke’s main messages is the need to recruit younger workers.

The average age of a nuclear reactor operator is over 40, she said. “That’s a big problem.”

Jon Wentzel, vice president of communications at the industry trade group Nuclear Energy Institute, who falls into that age group, agrees.

“What’s exciting about her is she’s not 50 years old,” he said.

Write to Jennifer Hiller at jennifer.hiller@wsj.com