Two years after Thomas Edison started America’s first commercial power plant in New York City, his company signed a deal with Gojong, Korea’s last king, and in 1887 Gyeongbokgung – home to kings of the Joseon dynasty since the 14th century – became the first place in Korea with electric light. The next year Gojong and two American businessmen launched Korea’s first electric utility, and by 1900 the first streetlights and electric streetcars were operating in Seoul. While the streetcars and electric systems were as safe as any at the time, the initial rollout was bumpy. Superstitious Koreans blamed a drought on the streetcars, jingoistic Seoulites resented that the first drivers were Japanese, and within ten days of the inaugural ride a child ran into the path of an oncoming streetcar and was killed. All of this led to protests and changes but the streetcars were popular and Korea was not a democracy, so the streetcars continue to roll. Decades later anti-nuclear protests remained small in Korea until Fukushima, which led the government in 2017 to announce the phase-out of its nuclear fleet. After a volte-face last year South Korea’s new government aims to expand its domestic reactor fleet and become a top exporter of nuclear reactors and the parts for them. Precedent suggests it may succeed.

South Korea arrived late to the nuclear scene but dived in vigorously. An American firm provided South Korea with its first nuclear reactor in 1978 – four years after North Korea had its first working reactor. South Korea’s autocratic government of the time wanted nuclear power and nuclear weapons, but America blocked the weapons program and by 2000 the country had started or finished construction on 20 reactors. Today nuclear energy accounts for a third of South Korea’s electricity, although 85% of the nation’s energy comes from fossil fuels. During the South’s autocracy period, rulers pushed industrialization to grow the economy and to build defenses against North Korea. That industrialization has long made it a successful maker of the heavy industry parts required for nuclear plants and much else, but also revealed the South’s strength at entering new markets. 

From a base of nearly nothing at the beginning of the 1990s, South Korean car exports grew sharply over the next three decades, reaching a record high of 2.3 million passenger cars last year, only about a million fewer than Japan or China. Similarly, in memory chips South Korea started manufacturing in the mid-1980s, overtook the US and then Japan in the 1990s, and today accounts for two-thirds of global production. Perhaps the South’s weapons sales best reflect the challenges and opportunities that the government sees in nuclear sales. Both are industries where private companies may dominate, but some are partially or mostly government owned and all deals are made or regulated by their home-country governments.

While South Korea has long been a major weapons importer and manufacturer, in the past decade it has sought to ramp up its arms exports. From 2005 to 2021 it sextupled exports. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to a barrage of deals from nations that have supplied weapons to Ukraine – many South Korean weapons systems are NATO-compatible – and a 140% increase in arms sales from 2021 to 2022. Even before Russia’s invasion South Korea’s weapons sales were accelerating, just as Russia’s sales were decelerating. From 2011 to 2021 Russia’s arms sales fell about 70% and Russia went from exporting to three dozen countries down to mostly four, including China, India, and Russian-ally Belarus. South Korea has succeeded in the weapons market much the way it did in chips and cars – producing high-quality goods at competitive prices and – just as importantly – quickly. In late August last year Poland signed a deal to buy South Korean tanks and howitzers, and by early December the first 34 were unloaded in Poland. Like Russia and China but unlike many arms-exporting countries, South Korea is happy to make arms deals with almost anyone, from NATO members to Thailand (with its de facto military regime), Egypt (with its explicit military regime), and Myanmar (where the military is killing and impoverishing the populace). South Korea only retreated from its Myanmar deal after protests at home and abroad. The government knows that arms sales to these nations – and in future, reactor sales – bring not only revenues but also potential influence in foreign capitals. Its first complete nuclear reactor sale is demonstrative. 

In 2009 the United Arab Emirates, UAE, signed a four reactor, $20 billion deal with the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) to build the UAE’s first nuclear power plant. The mostly-government-owned KEPCO runs Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), South Korea’s primary nuclear reactor entity. The third unit of the UAE Barakah plant went online earlier this year just a few months after Korea switched on yet another reactor of the same model, the APR-1400. From the deal KEPCO, KHNP, and the South Korean government not only learned how to negotiate nuclear reactor sales, but also how to help establish a nuclear regulatory institution abroad. UAE nuclear regulators to-be trained with Korean regulators in the UAE and in South Korea, much as Turkish and Egyptian nuclear regulators have trained with Russians and in Russia. 

That first-mover advantage makes it faster and easier for the UAE to approve and operate future APR-1400s, and paves the way for growth in other UAE-South Korea trade. South Korea imports almost all of its fossil fuels, including several billion dollars of petroleum from the UAE annually. That is a small share compared with imports from Saudi Arabia, but one poised to grow. Last year the UAE agreed to buy a $3.5 billion South Korean missile system, and earlier this year the UAE announced that it would invest $30 billion in South Korea. 

The UAE deal represents just a piece of South Korea’s current nuclear export plans. It is bidding on new plants in the Czech Republic, proposing to build APR-1400s in Turkey, and contributing billions of dollars in parts to the Russian-built nuclear plant in Egypt. This year the South Korean government, KEPCO, KHNP, and other Korean firms that contribute to the nuclear supply chain announced a cooperative effort to expand nuclear exports over the coming decade. As with weapons exports, nuclear exports may encounter issues. The American government is currently causing headaches for KHNP’s Czech bid because Westinghouse Electric alleges that the APR-1400 copies technology from Combustion Engineering, a nuclear firm once headquartered in New York City. Westinghouse bought Combustion Engineering, the US firm that sold South Korea its first reactor. South Korea’s bid in Turkey may go nowhere if Turkey’s newly re-elected president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, continues to favor dealmaking with Russian president Vladimir Putin. However, Russia’s invasion has led many Western nations both to reject nuclear deals with Russia and to embrace nuclear power, creating an opening for South Korea.

Ultimately the reliability, massive capacity, and zero-emissions of nuclear reactors may lead to such great global demand that South Korea will become only one of several big exporters of nuclear reactors, just as it is among weapons exporters. Despite initial skepticism or protest in some countries using or considering nuclear power for the first time, this new wave of reactors may end up like Seoul’s old streetcars. Concerns of those turn-of-the-century Seoulites aside, the city’s streetcars continued to roll during Japanese annexation, two world wars, and the Korean War, all the way through 1968. Three years after their last runs, construction began on Seoul’s first subway line. In typical South Korean fashion, construction was fast – the line opened three years later.