A pyrrhic victory for nuclear power [News]

By late this year or early in 2018, two nuclear reactors could start operating in China-an event that might be a lifesaver for the units' crippled builder and designer, Westinghouse Electric Co., and for the technology they represent. Both Westinghouse and its prized AP1000 reactor design have suffered a series of humbling setbacks this year. The AP1000 is arguably the world's most advanced commercial reactor. It is designed to passively cool itself during an accidental shutdown, theoretically avoiding accidents like those at Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant and Japan's Fukushima Daiichi. And for over a decade, it has been the presumed successor to China's mainstay reactors, which employ a 1970s-era French design.