"South Korea’s Export Policy of Nuclear Power Plants to the Middle East: Opportunities and Challenges"

Abstract

In the wake of the latest nuclear accident of the Fukushima Nuclear Reactor in 2011, there have been rising safety concerns regarding nuclear energy, leading to the decline of nuclear power development in many developed countries around the globe. In response to negative public perceptions on nuclear power, South Korea also transformed its nuclear energy policy from progressive development to gradual termination, such as the nuclear phase-out policy in 2017. This phase-out policy runs in parallel with nuclear export policy including with the Middle East, which generates heterogeneity in nuclear energy policy. The nature of heterogeneity manifests two distinguishable elements: termination of domestic nuclear reactor generation, and proliferation of nuclear reactor production abroad. This research investigates the factors that affected the South Korea’s nuclear export policy in the Middle East by using a techno-economic-socio-political interdisciplinary approach. The study also examines both opportunities (i.e., export-oriented economy structure and spillover effect to other regions) and challenges (i.e., international competition and nuclear proliferation issue) for South Korea in carrying out the nuclear export policy in the Middle East. Taking multiple factors such as politics, technology, and economy into account when considering nuclear energy policy, the success of South Korea’s nuclear export policy in the Middle East is contingent on the balance of various factors, and an effort to offset the ineffectiveness associated with the heterogeneous nature driven by two distinct policies of “phase-out” and “export.”