Last Energy Earns PDR Milestone at UK Office of Nuclear Regulation
Newcleo Calls It Quits for Lead Cooled Reactor
Helion Starts Work on Fusion Power Plant
Fusion Industry Sees Significant Increase In Funding
China Shows How Low-Cost Nuclear Construction Is Possible
France to Replace Aging Nuclear Fleet with Up to 14 EPRs
Last Energy Earns PDR Milestone at UK Office of Nuclear Regulation
First-of-its-kind Preliminary Design Review Completed
Company’s South Wales Project Advances Towards 2027 Licensing Target
Last Energy, a US-based micro-nuclear technology developer, announced that its power plant design, the PWR20, has successfully completed a Preliminary Design Review (PDR), becoming the first nuclear developer to do so in the United Kingdom. The review was conducted by the UK’s nuclear regulators: the Office for Nuclear Regulation (ONR), the Environment Agency, and Natural Resources Wales (NRW).
The regulators’ joint summary report confirms successful completion of the review in June 2025. It marks a significant development in Last Energy’s efforts to deploy the first commercial microreactor in the UK. Completion of the process follows over a year of early engagement with the regulators and five months of PDR-specific review, which included design workshops and technical submissions across selected topic areas.
The PDR process covered three topic areas: organizational plans and arrangements, environment and decommissioning, and safety analysis process and maturity, and included review of Last Energy’s fully-passive, walk-away-safe design approach.
The UK Office of Nuclear Regulation said in its press statement that “the Preliminary Design Review has built initial confidence that Last Energy understands regulatory expectations in those three areas and is planning to address them as the PWR-20 design matures and is subject to site-specific design assessment for deployment at their identified South Wales site. However, the review is not a substitute for generic or site-specific design assessment, nuclear site licensing, or environmental permitting processes.”
Last Energy took a victory lap saying the “the PDR confirms that a pathway exists to complete nuclear site licensing by 2027.”
According to the regulators’ summary report, Last Energy’s target to receive a site license decision by December 2027 is achievable contingent on the company delivering its submissions to the standard and schedule agreed in the PDR.
In January 2025, Last Energy became the first microreactor developer to formally enter nuclear site licensing for its plans to develop four 20 MWe microreactors in South Wales. Completion of the PDR now equips Last Energy with tailored regulatory guidance as it moves into the next phase of regulatory assessment of Last Energy’s design, safety, security, and environmental cases.
In October 2024, Last Energy announced plans to deploy four microreactors in South Wales at a vacant site that housed the coal-fired Llynfi Power Station. The company obtained site control that month, followed by a US Export-Import Bank Letter-of-Intent (LOI) for $103.7 million to support the financing for the first installation, pending final commitment.
The letter, issued by EXIM’s Structured & Project Finance Division, confirms the Bank’s willingness to diligence a $103.7 million financing toward a Last Energy microreactor planned in South Wales. EXIM’s support follows a review of Last Energy’s technology, business model, manufacturing plan, and access to nuclear fuel. Upon final commitment, the Bank’s facility would cover Last Energy’s entire costs for a single power plant installation.
In January 2025, Last Energy accepted a grid connection offer from National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED) for 22 MW of export capacity and 3 MW of import capacity for its first unit in South Wales. The official name for this project, being developed by Last Energy UK Limited, is Prosiect Egni Glan Llynfi.
Last Energy will not require public funding for the development, and estimates an overall capital investment of £300 million in equipment, services, and other development-related activities. At a hypothetical cost of $6,500/Kw. the first 20 MW PWR will cost $130 million. The four planned units for the former coal fired power plant would then cost $520 million. Last Energy’s claim of a cost of roughly $300 million would imply a cost of $3,750/kw which is an ambitious cost containment target for a first-of-a-kind new build. On its website Last Energy posted a claim it can delivery a 20 MW PWR in 24 months from breaking ground to entering revenue service.
The company plans to source at least 10% of its needs from South Wales suppliers, translating to a £30 million local economic investment. It plans to build dozens of its micro reactor in a factory setting.
In addition to the financial Letter of Intent from from the US Export-Import Bank the company raised $40 million in its Series B round in 2024, bringing total corporate financing to $66 million from investors including Gigafund and Autodesk Foundation. Last Energy has also announced power purchase agreements with industrial customers in Poland, Romania, and the United Kingdom.
The firm must now enter the formal Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process with the UK Office of Nuclear Regulation. It is an expensive, time consuming process in which much bigger firms have stumbled due to ONR calling out deficiencies in their applications. These firms have had to retrace their steps along the the additional expenses of not getting their submissions right the first time.
Last Energy’s participation in the PDR process may well serve to prevent such occurrences for the firm’s GDA journey.
About the ORN PDR Process
In its press statement the Office of Nuclear Regulation said the regulatory review, which ran between February 2025 and June 2025, was conducted under the early engagement framework for new nuclear projects.
Through applicant submissions, the Preliminary Design Review process aims to support regulators to identify potentially significant gaps against regulatory expectations and offers guidance on how to resolve them.
It also helps applicants achieve a better understanding of the project risks on the pathways through GDA or, as Last Energy are progressing, through site-specific design assessment, providing them with an early opportunity to develop credible plans for resolution.
Diego Lisbona, ONR’s Head of Regulation, Advanced Nuclear Technologies, said: “The early engagement process shows the flexibility of the UK regulatory framework. The feedback from companies is that they value the approach we take. We are asked questions on a wide range of topics and early engagement is our platform to give tailored answers to their individual needs.”
Status of Other Micro Nuclear Reactors in the UK
While the UK government has recently awarded Rolls-Roycle funding to build a FOAK of its 470 MW PWR, two microreactor firms are pursuing independent paths to market.
Copenhagen Atomics
UK Atomics – a subsidiary of Copenhagen Atomics has applied to DESNZ for entry into Generic Design Assessment (GDA) process. Moderated with unpressurized heavy water, the reactor ‘consumes nuclear waste’ while breeding new fuel from thorium.
Small enough to allow for mass manufacturing and assembly line production, the reactor has an output of 100 MWt. The firm said it has already constructed a prototype reactor, and is aiming for first deployment in 2028.
Copenhagen Atomics is collaborating with Indonesian companies to study the operational and regulatory conditions for constructing an ammonia production facility in Indonesia powered by small and modular thorium molten salt reactors The nuclear power plant part of the project will comprise of 25 SMR modules proving a total of 1 GW.11
The company calculates it can provide energy at a rate as low as £40 per megawatt hour (MWh), below the target price of Rolls-Royce’s light water reactors of £50 to 70 per MWh.12
Copenhagen Atomics has been awarded funding from the European Innovation Council (EIC) Accelerator programme to advance the development of its thorium molten salt reactors (MSRs). As part of the EIC Accelerator, Copenhagen Atomics will receive: €2.5 million in grant funding to support continued technological development and prototype validation. Also, it will get acess to up to €15 million in equity investment through the EIC Fund to help scale operations and prepare for market entry.
The EIC funding will support the further development of Copenhagen Atomics’ manufacturing infrastructure, supply chain, and licensing framework, all of which are critical for the commercial rollout. The fiorm’s long-term goal is to deploy fleets of these reactors to supply industrial heat and electricity for applications such as desalination, hydrogen and ammonia production.
Core Power Molten Salt Floating Reactor
The firm will also partner with Westinghouse to deploy its eVinci microreactor for use in floating nuclear power plants.
UK-based Core Power has received around $80 million in investment from a dozen Japanese companies. The companies include Onomichi Dockyard and Imabari Shipyard. A multinational team including Core Power, Southern Company, TerraPower and Orano USA are part of the Molten Chloride Reactor Experiment which aims to see the “world’s first fast-spectrum salt reactor achieve criticality”, to be built at Idaho National Laboratory, backed by US Department of Energy (DOE) funding.
Last year Core Power, MIT Energy Initiative and Idaho National Laboratory were granted research funding by the US DOE’s Nuclear Energy University Program, a three-year study into the development of offshore floating nuclear power generation in the USA.13
The 300MW reactor being developed by Core Power, TerraPower and Orano are molten chloride fast reactors which use liquid fuel with a high boiling point that can operate at normal pressure, so eliminating the need for the pressurization equipment which reduces the size of the plant. The plan is to launch a demonstration vessel costing $361 million in 2026 and commercialize it between 2030 and 2032.
World Nuclear News reported in February 2025 Core Power announced it would develop a “US-anchored” maritime civil nuclear program that will “bring floating nuclear power to market by the mid-2030s.”
The Liberty program “will lay the foundation for the use of nuclear power in the civil maritime sector”, the company said. The first part of the program will see the mass production of floating nuclear power plants. The expertise gained in rolling out FNPPs on a large scale will pave the way for the second part of the program, which involves developing nuclear propulsion for civil ships. The Liberty program will employ advanced nuclear technologies, such as molten salt reactors.
In November last year, Westinghouse and Core Power announced they had signed a cooperative agreement under which they will advance the design of a floating nuclear power plant using Westinghouse’s eVinci microreactor and its heat pipe technology. They will also collaborate to develop a regulatory approach to licensing floating nuclear power plant systems.
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Newcleo Calls It Quits for Lead Cooled Reactor
Newcleo will suspend its program to develop Lead-Cooled Fast Reactors (LFR) in the UK and will substantially wind down its UK activities. The firm is based in France but its CEO and the senior leadership team are from Italy.
The company said in its press statement that despite support and funding being provided to other small modular reactor (SMR) technologies, opportunities for this backing have not been forthcoming for Generation IV developers in the UK such as Newcleo.
In addition, the alternative routes to market for advanced reactors, which have been called out for a number of years in UK policy, including processes involving Great British Energy – Nuclear and National Wealth Fund, are unlikely to offer certainty of tangible support in a timeframe capable of making the UK a better prospect for Newcleo compared to other territories. Newcleo said it has decided to concentrate the business’ efforts in countries where substantive support is more forthcoming.
In Slovakia, Newcleo has created a joint venture with the state-owned nuclear company, JAVYS, to build up to four LFRs powered by the country’s spent nuclear fuel stocks. In June, an agreement with the Lithuanian Government was signed based on a similar strategy. Newcleo believes that, by comparison, these markets offer better prospects than the UK at this time and this has driven the decision to strengthen its focus on territories more aligned with its offering.
Background on Newcleo’s UK project
Newcleo had intended to develop an initial site of up to four reactors in the UK, producing a total of 800MW. The company’s broader objective of building up to 20 reactors producing 4 GW of clean energy included the potential to make use of the UK’s plutonium stockpile and even reprocessed spent nuclear fuel from new sites such as Hinkley Point C and Sizewell C, avoiding the need for this material to be sent to a geological repository, and effectively closing the nuclear fuel cycle in the UK.
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Helion Starts Work on Fusion Power Plant
Helion Secures Land in Central Washington State
Firm Begins Building on the Site of World’s First Fusion Power Plant
Helion, a Washington-based fusion energy company, announced that it has begun work on the site of its first fusion power plant, Orion, marking a major step in bringing fusion electricity to the grid. Located in Malaga, in Chelan County, WA, the remote site 155 miles east of Seattle, WA, was chosen for its ready access to transmission to the grid.
In 2023, Helion announced the world’s first power purchase agreement (PPA) that will provide 50 MW of energy from a fusion power plant to Microsoft by 2028, with Constellation Energy serving as power marketer.
Helion has raised over $1 billion in funding. Helion was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Everett, WA.
Helion’s 7th-generation prototype, Polaris, is expected to demonstrate the first electricity produced from fusion. With its previous prototype, Trenta, Helion was the first private company to achieve a fuel temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, which is generally considered the required operating temperature for a commercial fusion power plant.
Helion uses a deuterium-He3 fusion. Helion uses a form of field-reversed configuration to trap plasma. Helion’s approach uses a linear fusion system with pulsed magnetic compression and differs from the traditional design for fusion reactions, which relies on tokamaks.
The Trenta prototype successfully achieved plasma temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius. Helion is currently developing and operating the Polaris prototype reactor. Polaris aims to operate at temperatures beyond 100 million degrees and is reported to have achieved breakeven in terms of energy in out.
Fusion Power for Data Centers
Data Center Dynamics (DCD), a trade publication for the data center industry, reported recently that Microsoft is betting on the Helion fusion machine will be ready in time, by 2028, to power its planned data centers intended to support the booming artificial intelligence field. Microsoft has invested $13 billion in Open AI.
According to DCD Helion, which is also backed by Sam Altman, in January, announced the successful raise of $425 million in a Series F round. Last year, Altman-owned OpenAI was reportedly in talks to purchase “vast quantities” of power from Helion.
Yet, DCD notes several challenges could hinder Helion’s progress. They include high capital investment, extreme thermal stresses, and the technical difficulty of containing high-energy plasma. These issues have cast doubt on near-term deployment, with most forecasts pointing to commercialization dates from late 2030s through the 2040s.
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Fusion Industry Sees Significant Increase In Funding, But Says Investment Remains ‘A Major Challenge’
Industry Raised $2.64 billion in 2024/2025
(NucNet) The fusion industry raised $2.64 billion (€2.25 billion) in private and public funding in the 12 months leading to July 2025, according to the annual Global Fusion Industry Report by the Fusion Industry Association (FIA). Despite the acceleration in funding, 83% of respondents still consider investment a major challenge.
The figure represents a significant increase from 2024 and is the second highest yearly fusion funding figure since the report began, after a record year in 2022, the FIA said.
Total funding for the 53 fusion companies covered in the latest report stands at $9.7 billion, a five-fold increase since 2021. Two other fusion firms are ahead of Helion which is in third place overall in terms of raising funds for fusion development.
This year’s total figure includes several major funding rounds including the $900 million Series A for US-based Pacific Fusion, which came out of stealth mode in November 2024. Other significant rounds included a $425 million Series F for US-based Helion in January 2025, and €113 million Series B for Germany-based Marvel Fusion.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the global leader in raising capital to develop fusion power. It has raised over $2 billion in funding. Investors include Google, Temasek Holdings (Pvt.) Ltd., Eni, and Bill Gates. CFS emerged from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center and continues collaborating with MIT, providing privileged access to top research institutions and national laboratories.
TAE has secured over $1.2 billion in funding from companies such as Google, Venrock and Chevron Corp. TAE has also built partnerships with Google to use AI in process optimization and with universities such as UC Irvine and Princeton to collaborate on advancing fusion technologies.
Giving an industry total of $77 billion, this is eight times more than has been committed to the industry to date, though the report emphasizes that this should not be taken as the total investment needed, as there will inevitably be some consolidation, with a smaller number of firms emerging as technology and commercialization leaders.
Nonetheless, fusion companies say they remain confident in their timelines for delivering fusion-generated electricity to the grid, with 84% of respondents believing this will happen before the end of the 2030s and 53% by 2035.
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China Shows How Low-Cost Nuclear Construction Is Possible
Strengthening regulations and domestic supply chains could be key to making reactors more economically viable
Construction and operating costs for commercial nuclear power plants in China are dramatically less than those in the US and France, according to researchers from major universities.
(NucNet) The research team from Johns Hopkins University, Harvard, City University of New York (CUNY) and Stony Brook University compiled and analyzed new data to show how China has reduced nuclear construction costs over time though a mixture of standardized designs, the “indigenization” of supply chains and coordinated industrial policy.
In the US, average costs today for new nuclear plants can be as high as $15/watt. By comparison, the current cost of the highly standardized Chinese-designed plants are about $2/watt.
The authors, whose analysis appears in Nature (firewalled article), cautioned that nuclear power is still not cheap, but said China’s experience offers a valuable playbook for other countries aiming to deploy nuclear energy affordably and at scale.
Historically, the industry has faced a “cost escalation curse”, they said. Building more nuclear reactors has led to higher, not lower, costs per watt, hampering their economic viability. By contrast, for solar and wind energy, mass production and steady technological improvements have driven costs down.
“This is an exciting three-country comparison of data and trends which follows a model we first tried back in 2007 when we could only access data for the ‘fleet’ of 103 U.S nuclear plants at 67 sites. Now we can look globally and update our approach at a time when many nations in both industrialized and industrializing regions are taking a deep, second, look at nuclear power,” says author Dan Kammen, the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of the Just Energy Transition at Johns Hopkins.
“Globally, the more nuclear we build, the more expensive it’s gotten,” said Shangwei Liu, lead author and a researcher at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
“But in China we see the opposite: a carefully sequenced strategy that is driving costs down – not just through technology, but through policy, institutions, and supply chain coordination.”
Keys to China’s success, the authors said, are predictable regulation, staged indigenisation of manufacturing, and long-term planning.
“Substituting expensive imports with domestically produced components substantially lowered costs,” said Gang He, assistant professor at the Marxe School of Public and International Affairs at CUNY’s Baruch College.
“Strategic indigenization may be the key not only for nuclear, but for other clean technologies in countries seeking to scale up rapidly.”
Avoid Repeating Past Mistakes
The authors called on researchers, policymakers and industry leaders to avoid repeating past mistakes, such as abandoning standardized designs or rushing to localize complex systems, before domestic capabilities are ready. They argued for deeper component-level cost analysis and greater alignment between safety and cost control in regulatory systems.
“Countries that export nuclear technology should collaborate with importing ones to identify components that can be locally manufactured and train the workforce,” said Minghao Qiu, an assistant professor at Stony Brook University.
China has more than 30 reactors under construction and in planning, and France has announced plans to build 14 reactors. Technology giants, including Amazon, Google and Microsoft, are also investing in nuclear to power their energy-hungry data centres and lower their carbon emissions.
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France to Replace Aging Nuclear Fleet with Up to 14 EPRs
France Progressing On Ambitious New Plans For Rebirth Of Nuclear Industry
(NucNet) France is “progressing successfully” on its “ambitious” new nuclear construction plans with major new projects in the works, according to Valerie Faudon, executive director of the French nuclear society SFEN
The French government and state power company EDF plan to build six EPR 2 reactors, with a further eight units to follow, all scheduled to be completed by 2050.
The French nuclear industry is “ready and working hard towards the next stages of nuclear development,” Faudon said, adding that the country now has four major nuclear-related projects in the works.
She said the four projects are life-extension projects involving the existing fleet, the nuclear construction program involving the next-generation EPR2 reactor, a program of “disruptive innovations” such as the development of small modular reactors, and the renewal of the industrial facilities needed to recycle spent nuclear fuel for reuse as mixed uranium and plutonium oxide, or MOX.
MOX is a nuclear fuel consisting of a blend of uranium and plutonium oxides. It can be made from reprocessed spent nuclear fuel or from plutonium recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons. France’s MOX fuel policy is a key part of its “closed nuclear fuel cycle” strategy, which involves recycling spent nuclear fuel to recover usable uranium and plutonium for new fuel.
LWR Life Extension Projects
France has three main types of pressurized water reactor in operation: the 900 MW series units, the 1,300 MW series units and the 1,400-MW series units.
The 10-year life extension program for the 900-MW series reactors has already begun, Faudon said, adding that regulatory approval has also been given for the start of the 10-year life extension for the 1,300-MW fleet.
However, “there are challenges that need to be still overcome” for the French nuclear sector, Faudon said.
“The nuclear sector has started a major program to attract new talent in the industry, as it will need to hire 10,000 people a year for the next 10 years.
Negotiations On State Aid Have Started, Say Reports
Reports in the French press recently indicated that negotiations had started with the European Commission on state aid approval for a zero interest state loan that would cover more than 50% of the cost of the EPR2 construction program, with a contract for difference (CfD) scheme with a “strike price” below 100€/MWh.
The strike price is a guaranteed price for the electricity the reactors would generate, regardless of fluctuating market prices. If the market price falls below the strike price, the generator receives a payment to make up the difference. If the market price rises above the strike price, the generator pays back the surplus.
This mechanism is designed to protect both generators from price volatility and consumers from paying high support costs when electricity prices are high.
France’s most recent commercial nuclear project, the Flamanville-3 EPR nuclear plant in Normandy, did not use a CfD financing scheme with a strike price. It was primarily financed by EDF, with some support from the French government.
While the initial cost estimates for Flamanville-3 were around €3.3 billion ($3.8 billion), the project has faced significant delays and cost overruns, with the current estimated cost reaching €13.2 billion.
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