Korea, US can make 'great' progress in SMRs: State Department official

INCHEON — South Korea and the United States have complementary strengths and are capable of driving "great" progress in the nuclear sector amid a heated global race to develop next-generation reactors, a U.S. State Department official said.

Christopher Klein, the deputy assistant secretary for nuclear nonproliferation and commercial competitiveness at the U.S. Department of State, made the remarks in an exclusive interview with Yonhap News Agency on Wednesday, saying the global landscape has transitioned into a "nuclear renaissance."

"We are countries that both have a lot of experience and expertise, and when we work together ... we can achieve great things," Klein said during the interview on the margins of the International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power held in Incheon, west of Seoul.

The three-day event, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was held in South Korea for the first time this year.

Klein's comment comes amid growing attention to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) — a new class of nuclear power plants — as countries seek reliable, carbon-free power to meet surging electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence (AI) and data centers.

The technology is viewed as a more flexible and potentially less costly alternative to traditional large-scale nuclear power plants.

It also comes as the U.S. and South Korea have drawn closer in the SMR sector, with local companies actively partnering with U.S. firms in the development and construction of such reactors.

SK Group made financial investments in TerraPower LLC, a U.S. nuclear power company founded by Bill Gates, in 2022 to develop and commercialize SMRs in the U.S. and global markets. Doosan Enerbility, a local nuclear power plant builder, has recently won a supply contract from the U.S.-based SMR developer NuScale Power to supply a key reactor component.

Such tightening private sector ties are being reinforced by institutional efforts.

In July, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan signed a memorandum of cooperation (MOC) to establish a government-led framework to combine their respective strengths in the nuclear sector to jointly respond to surging energy demand and geopolitical competition.

The three countries agreed to work together in deploying nuclear reactors, supply chain optimization, and knowledge transfer and training, according to a fact sheet on the MOC.

The trilateral agreement is still in its early stages, in which the three countries are closely communicating to identify where to start deploying SMRs together, the U.S. official said. But Washington hopes to move "quickly" toward some actual projects "as soon as possible," he noted.

"I think working together, the United States, the Republic of Korea and Japan, we wouldn't just survive. ... We would thrive, and I think we would be a formidable competitor around the world (in the nuclear sector)," the official said, referring to South Korea by its official name.

"I look forward to some big announcements to come. There's a big market out there, and there's a competition, and you got to be in it to win it."