The Fingleton Review: UK Is the Most Expensive Place to Build Nuclear

The Review That Should Have Changed Everything

In early 2025, the UK government published the Fingleton Review — an independent assessment of why nuclear power costs so much to build in Britain. Its conclusions were damning.

The central finding: the UK is the most expensive place in the world to build nuclear power stations.

Not one of the most expensive. The most expensive. Full stop.

What the Review Found

The Fingleton Review identified several systemic failures:

1. Regulatory Gold-Plating The UK's nuclear regulator, the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), imposes requirements that go far beyond international standards. Safety requirements are layered on top of each other until projects become unbuildable at reasonable cost.

• The UK requires bespoke safety cases for each site, even when using proven reactor designs
• Environmental impact assessments take years and cost hundreds of millions
• Planning processes are slower than almost any comparable country

2. No Standardisation Every UK nuclear project is treated as a one-off. Hinkley Point C has a bespoke design, bespoke construction process, and bespoke regulatory pathway. Sizewell C will be largely identical to Hinkley — yet it still requires its own separate regulatory and planning process.

Compare this to France in the 1970s–80s, which built 56 standardised reactors in 15 years using a single design, a single construction company, and a streamlined regulatory process. Or South Korea, which built 4 APR-1400 reactors at Barakah (UAE) on time and on budget using identical factory processes.

3. Supply Chain Collapse Britain hasn't built a new nuclear station in decades. The supply chain — specialist steel fabricators, concrete pourers, nuclear-grade welders — has largely disappeared. Every new project must recreate these capabilities from scratch.

4. Foreign Dependency Hinkley Point C is being built by EDF (France) and CGN (China). The UK has outsourced its nuclear capability to foreign state-owned companies. When problems arise, British taxpayers pay but have limited control.

What the Review Recommended

The Fingleton Review called for:

• Streamlined regulatory processes
• Standardised reactor designs
• A fleet-based approach to nuclear construction
• Rebuilding domestic supply chains
• Reducing planning timescales

These are precisely the principles CFF was designed around.

CFF: Built to Answer Fingleton

CFF's architecture addresses every one of the Fingleton Review's criticisms:

Fingleton Problem	CFF Solution
Bespoke designs	48 identical HTGR modules per site, 1,344 nationally
No standardisation	One design, one regulatory approval, 28 deployments
Collapsed supply chain	Factory production of modules rebuilds UK manufacturing
Slow planning	Compact 55-hectare sites with 120m earth berms reduce planning scope
Foreign dependency	100% publicly owned, UK-built, UK-operated
Cost overruns	Fleet Effect — each build cheaper than the last

The Fleet Effect is the direct answer to Fingleton. When you build 1,344 identical modules, you get:

• Learning-curve cost reductions (typically 15–20% per doubling of units)
• Dedicated factory production lines
• Standardised workforce training
• Streamlined regulatory review (approve once, deploy 28 times)

Why Nothing Has Changed

The Fingleton Review was published. Politicians praised it. And then nothing happened. Sizewell C is proceeding as another bespoke mega-project. No fleet programme has been announced. The supply chain remains fragmented.

The UK government knows what's wrong. It has a review that tells it exactly what's wrong. It just hasn't acted on the conclusions — because acting would mean admitting that Hinkley and Sizewell are the wrong approach.

CFF is what acting on Fingleton looks like.

See the delivery plan →

---

Carbon Free Future is an independent proposal by DJ Waugh, a retired engineer from the North East of England.