25 years too late - more like 40
I'm old enough to have worked on Heysham 1 and Heysham 2 when they were being built.
We had the technology and could have carried on, not putting large amounts of CO2 and SO2* into the atmosphere. I think the objectors to Nuclear power did a great job of scaring people with the waste argument, so everything stopped. But I think they were mistaken.
Things are different now, and even if Nuclear is not the final answer, we are too late not to have a zero CO2 energy source as a reserve. I'm all for renewables, but they don't always get the base load, and the battery storage is not there yet.
* Remember when acid rain was the problem?