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It would still take years to build all the new nuclear reactors and meanwhile we'd be depended on Saudi oil. What I don't understand is why no serious effort has been undertaken to develop the technology to control the nuclear fusion reaction for use in power generation.

No, it wouldn't. Nuclear reactors are off-the-shelf technology. They could be put up very quickly. There is serious effort in fusion, but it's still decades away from even a basic working model, let alone a commercial version. With fusion, you still have radioactivity to deal with. With fission, it's proven, reliable, safe, feasible, and cost-effective (not taking into account artificial costs imposed by anti-nuke suits), and it's ready right now. For that matter, using breeder reactors there is and will be plenty of fuel to supply all energy needs (that which doesn't rely on actually burning anything) for tens of thousands of years without even having to think of fusion. However, fusion would be great for such things as ore processing.