WAYNESBORO, Ga. (AP) — Utility companies are preparing a new wave of workers to run first-of-their-kind nuclear plants, a process certain to influence how workers are trained on the new technology for decades to come.

Southern Co. in Georgia and SCANA Corp. in South Carolina are the first to prepare new workers to run a recently approved reactor design never before built in the United States. Training like it will be repeated over the decades-long lifetime of those plants and at other new ones that may share the technology in years to come.