Breeding is a counter-example. Fermi envisioned it in the early 1940's.

Lab breeder reactors emerged during the 1950's and were satisfying in the 1960's.

Big projects aiming at obtaining an industrial reactor were aplenty, worldwide, during the 1970's through the 1990's.

They all failed, and remaining efforts are quite sparse. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeder_reactor#Notable_reacto...

Obtaining something adequate (raw size, reliability, safety, ease of use...) isn't always easy.

The quest of an industrial nuclear fusion reactor may tank this way.