Nuclear Power Export Market
On May 3, the Federation of Korean Industries (FKI) released a report suggesting that South Korea and the United States should strengthen cooperation in the nuclear power export market dominated by Russia and China, including building a supply chain together.
According to the report titled “Korea-U.S. Nuclear Power Civilian Cooperation Plan,” written for FKI by Park Sang-gil, an expert at law firm Gwangjang, a total of 34 export nuclear power plants were under construction in 13 countries as of 2022. Of these, 23 (67.6 percent) were ordered from Russia. China landed orders for four power plants, accounting for 11.7 percent of the total.
The report analyzed that after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, countries that were once considered nuclear power plant powerhouses such as South Korea, Japan, and Germany embarked on their nuclear phase-out policies, so Russia and China emerged as new powerhouses in the global nuclear power plant export market.
As a result, the United States has recognized Russia’s and China’s expansion in the global nuclear power plant market as a serious security threat and is preparing a strategy to restore the competitiveness of the nuclear power industry by proposing related legislation. In particular, small modular reactors (SMRs), rather than large nuclear power plants, are seen as the key to restoring competitiveness in the nuclear power industry. Since 2022, the United States has been operating the FIRST program to support the initial foundation for the introduction of SMRs to countries that want to build new nuclear power plants.
The report noted that South Korea should consider developing a program based on its competitiveness in nuclear power plant construction and operation to operate complementarily to the U.S.-led FIRST program. The South Korean government formalized its support for the FIRST program at the U.S.-South Korea summit in May last year. In October last year, Japan developed a separate program called WECAN as part of the FIRST Program and launched a feasibility study on the introduction of SMRs in Ghana jointly with the United States.
The point is securing a stable supply of high-assay, low-enriched uranium (HALEU) used as a fuel for SMRs. South Korea is completely dependent on Russian company Tenex for HALEU supply. South Korea should participate in the construction of HALEU enrichment facilities through equity investment or engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) to build a nuclear supply chain with the United States, the report said.