That's the great thing about nuclear. Not only do we already have better designs, there's still tons of room for improvement and progress toward making them even safer, and it's far easier to sequester spent nuclear fuel (politics aside) than spent coal ash (if we decided it was worth the cost to sequester it, instead of blowing it into the air and holding it in massive leaking open-air containment "reservoirs")
Nuclear is not only the safest, but it's also the cleanest non-renewable. Both by ultra-long shots, and with even more room for improvement.
The real issue is people prefer to roll the dice, living with the chance of dying of a coal-caused pathology (cancer, heavy-metal poisoning, particulate inhalation) that's spread very wide amongst the general population, rather than being anywhere near a reactor that *will kill them* if it goes Chernobyl on their ass, simply by virtue of being near it. I think it's a lot akin to the risk of driving, and the risk of flying, and the bizarre fear of the safer of the two.
Thanks for the historical disaster reading material!