NRC Design Certifications

Not too surprisingly, the NRC stated yesterday that it expects to certify the Westinghouse AP1000 plant design, and two BWR's from GE-Hitachi as early as this summer. That's right in line with the projects that will use these plant designs here. Business Week has a good but brief article.

Meanwhile, the certification for the Mitsubishi APWR has been pushed back as much as a year and a half because Mitsubishi has made design changes that the NRC hasn't reviewed. This could be a bad point for those projects considering the design, although frankly 18 months is nowhere near the ultimate long-lead-time hardware order point for any of those plants.