Yes. I wonder whether a push for something like small modular reactors, starting in say 1973, might have got us a real solution. Seems a bit late now, but would love to be proved wrong on that.
From the 90s to the mid-2000s there was probably a window for development in this area. But the nuclear sector stagnated as a whole, and then fracking made natural gas cheap enough that people wouldn't consider it.
The jury is out on SMRs still. They're promising a lot, and the tech and engineering has improved. But plunging costs of renewables mean the window of opportunity for nuclear tech is probably mostly closed in the West. This article from a highly respected energy sector analysis group is worth a read: https://about.bnef.com/blog/scale-up-of-solar-and-wind-puts-...
India and China are the big markets for nuclear right now -- their energy demands continue to grow, and they're building reactors as part of an all-of-the-above model. France MIGHT be a potential buyer of SMRs (their reactor fleet is getting close to end-of-life), but their nuclear companies have put a lot of push behind the EPR design.