The nuclear power debate is a controversy about the deployment and use of nuclear fission reactors to generate electricity from nuclear fuel for civilian purposes. The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, when it "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies", in some countries. Observers attribute the nuclear controversy to the impossibility of generating a shared perception between social actors over the use of this technology as well as systemic mismatches between expectations and experience.