ROK’s Control Practices for Nuclear Power Plant Exports

The green house effect due to the uncontrolled release of carbon dioxide is threatening the ecosystem of this planet. It is necessary to reduce drastically the use of fossil fuel in order to preserve the environment. It is now commonly agreed that the nuclear energy should be able to take the place of the role of the fossil. It is expected that more than 300 units of NPPs will be constructed until 2030. Most developing countries are planning to introduce the nuclear energy to cope with electric power demand on surge. For the construction of nuclear power plants, a lot of strategic items are to be transferred, which might increase proliferation risk. So the country which wants to export NPPs is required to equip the well established export control system, and also prepare some measures to satisfy its clients. There should be a balance between promotion and control in nuclear power plant export, so some effective ways to do this are explored in this paper in the aspect of bilateral cooperation. Recently the ROK won the bid for the UAE’s first nuclear power plant project and Jordan’s research reactor project. The ROK has a well established export control system for strategic items according to the NSG guideline. The ROK’s current export control system is needed to be greatly improved including the change of issuing export permit based on project. Timely issuing of export permit is essential for the success of the projects, but the review process for export permit application ought to be exact and transparent. To this end, the ROK Government considers to introduce an expert working group for prior decision of strategic items as a measure for attaining human resources for export permit review, and to improve its online system for export permit of nuclear trigger items, the NEPS. In this paper, the ROK’s current export control practice and the new plan for improving its export control system are presented and compared.