French Plans for a Nuclear Plant Begin to Look Like a Bad Deal for Britain

As Britain races to replace its aging nuclear reactors and coal generators, it’s hoping to team up with France to build the most expensive power plant in history—a massive atomic facility with two reactors at Hinkley Point on England’s southwestern coast. It could provide 7 percent of the country’s electricity by 2025. But the design, intended to showcase the latest French reactor technology, poses engineering and financial problems that could create a costly morass for both countries.

State utility Électricité de France (EDF) is expected to build the plant and finance two-thirds of the estimated £18 billion ($26.2 billion) cost. That price tag assumes the Evolutionary Power Reactor (EPR), the next-generation model planned for Hinkley Point, will be delivered on time and on budget. But that hasn’t been the case in France and Finland, where EPRs under construction have run into multiyear delays and billions in cost overruns.