We could have had safe Nuclear energy from the outset but the people that make a lot out of oil have been cornering the market on the raw fuel for the current type of reactors. First they want to make all they can out of oil, then they want to make all they can out of uranium and only when those are depleted will they remove the suppressing controls on the safe and sensible stuff.
A big problem though with some of these reactor types is that they also create weapons grade byproducts at some point.