[en] The maturation of nuclear power since 1970 can simplistically be viewed as evolving through three phases; the early to mid-1970's period of vigorous load growth, anticipated economies of scale, high availability, and low operating costs all ''fueling'' the rush to new NSSS orders, the mid to late 1970's period which witnessed a complete reversal of the above coupled with new and adverse nuclear regulatory environment, the early to mid 1980's period saw more units canceled than remained under construction and those few units completed suffering heretofore unheard of PUC rate base disallowances for alleged ''imprudency.'' The current adverse political PUC environment will likely next apply the prudency standard to a utility's management of nuclear plant outage/refueling management and implementation of NRC-driven retrofits. While there are no guarantees of total dollar inclusion of these costs into the rate base, a utility can prepare to be in the best possible position for the eventual hearing. This may be possible with the implementation of better project controls, integrating the planning from the utility, A/E, NSSS vendor, specialty contractors, and lastly involving the various regulatory bodies and responsible political entities