Question: are we taking more precautions to ensure that another disaster such as Chernobyl doesn't reoccur?

Liam Gaffney answered on 21 Nov 2019:

Yes, new reactor designs are extremely complicated yet also really simple in another way.

The engineering that goes in to making sure that every dangerous scenario has multiple fail safe is the most expensive part of making new reactors. Old reactors have also been upgraded to factor in the dangers observed at Chernobyl and other minor and more recent incidents like Windscale in the Lake District or Three Mile Island in the USA. Even though these were not as disastrous as Chernobyl, they did release some radiation to the environment.

On the simple side of things, one key design feature takes advantage of the fuel that is used. Quite simply, these new fuels cannot physical go into a runaway reaction like that at Chernobyl. Therefore, if there is ever a failure of the control rods or otherwise, the nuclear reactions would simply stop and the reactor would automatically shut itself down. The key to safety is in the design and nuclear is still considered one of the safest source of energy production, al things considered.