To restore faith in nuclear: http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=19710050022
Researched as a rocket engine (but equally effective for terrestrial power) over 40 years ago. Instead of taking 20,000 kg of fuel (which is about how much each Fukushima reactor had) and trying to prevent it from overheating, the nuclear lightbulb reactor (or rocket engine) takes 20kg of fuel, compresses, and heats the fuel to the point where it is a self sustaining critical reaction. If the chamber ruptures or power is cut, the core (which at this point is about 10,000 Kelvin and a black body radiator in UV-vis) expands, cools, and reacts with oxygen to quickly precipitate. If you combine this with a plasma window separated vacuum chamber with graphite or another neutron moderator, the second power is cut the entire chamber including the nuclear core is sucked into a safety chamber (plasma windows require multiple kilowatts of power per inch diameter so any failure causes it to die). Of course there are some material science problems to go over but with the progress we (Corning alone, really) made in the last 40 years, it is achievable.
Food for thought: the worst power-generation related disaster was by far Deep Water Horizon, which is turning the entire Gulf of Mexico into a deadzone (you could even see the oil from space! [1]). Hell, BP's fuck up wasn't even the worst case scenario (earthquake or something causing the entire subterranean pipe to expand past the point of closing with conventional cement) and we will be dealing with the aftermath for many decades.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Deepwater_Horizon_oil_spil...
