> It strikes me a lot of the nuclear focus is (understandable, if not justifiable) interest in cool new technology.

This is very funny. The first nuclear power plant began operation in June 1954. That same year is when Bell Labs created the first commercially viable solar cell (although I doubt it was used to generate power for any grids until long after that).

So this (implied) claim is not just wrong about the age of nuclear power, it even gets the chronology wrong in comparing it to solar.