Mind that the above article is a trip relay; quite useful by itself, but it won't limit current, and relays aren't fast enough to save fast-blow fuses, let alone transistors. (Diodes and thyristors are probably okay, assuming they are fused appropriately.) It would work well in combination with a light bulb (or other load resistance) bank.
To do better, you need a current limiter. I'd like to make one myself, actually; a resettable, current limiting fuse, that is. I've already made a smaller version, 30V 20A, which works very nicely, fits in a handy enclosure, and is battery powered.
The challenge is, to withstand mains power, the circuit must dissipate many kW at a time, and it may occasionally be subject to overvoltage swells and surges. (Wouldn't want your project suddenly kicking on full throttle just because someone turned on/off their air conditioning nearby, or because it's stormy outside!) Semiconductors can't handle this for long at all. There aren't many other things you can dump that energy into (big resistor, stack of MOVs?), and none of them are very compact or reliable. It would probably cost a few hundred dollars, though.
Tim