I recall seeing a show on Bill Gates a few years back and his drive to get modem nuclear going. It seems many of the current plants around the world are based on old designs from the 50s and 60s.
Newer and modern designs are much safer but it was going to take a tremendous amount of effort to get past the nuclear is bad mindset.
There's no way to easily educate the masses on a complicated scientific subject and elected officials aren't going to stay around for long pushing that kind of tech, they might as well push solar, wind, and tidal power as they would have better chances at staying in office.