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I just a little research since I got curious. It seems we're currently on generation 3 reactor designs for actual production power stations. The Japanese reactor where they had the problem of the crew aborting the shutdown sequence was a 30 year old gen 2. 85% of current reactors are based on the old naval design, which was made to fit in a sub, not to be safe or clean.
The exciting stuff seems to be Gen IV, including breeder reactors that re-burn the fuel, getting a hundred times as much energy from it and GREATLY reducing waste problems. Rather than having to dispose of high level waste, they use the high level stuff as fuel and produce only low level waste. Only China has a commercial breeder reactor now. North Korea had one planned. The US is in the early discussion stage.
That's sad. We in the US have become so complacent and consumerist we've sent all our money to China and they are now about fifteen years ahead of us in nuclear technology.
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