I would assume (though I'm not fully up to date) that the so-called "safer" reactor designs such as high-temperature gas cooled, pebble-bed, or thorium reactors are still pretty much research projects. They are likely at least a decade or more away from commercial scale feasibility.
One exception is the Integral Fast Reactor, which was near production-ready when Clinton cancelled the program in 1994. GE-Hitachi has a similar design called the PRISM which has been approved by the NRC for a full-scale demo reactor. GE is trying to sell it to the UK to burn up their plutonium stockpiles.
In the IFR tests at Argonne, researchers cut off the cooling system entirely, and the reactor just quietly shut down, with no damage.
A great new book on the IFR is Plentiful Energy by Till and Chang, two senior scientists at the Argonne project.
1. China is working on a mass-producible pebble bed reactor, the 100 MWe HTR-PM. The first pair of them are under construction, and are scheduled to start commercial operation in 2015.
2. It's possible to run existing pressurized light water reactors on a fuel mix consisting mostly of thorium. This has nothing to do with the capital costs of construction, but if uranium ever gets a lot more expensive, it could be a very useful option.
