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South Korea and the Saudi Contest AtomInfo.Ru, PUBLISHED 13.08.2022 South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol plans to hold high-level talks with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in November this year. According to "BusinessKorea", special attention will be paid to nuclear energy during the negotiations. South Korea intends to export at least 10 nuclear power units by 2030, and Saudi Arabia is among the potential consumers of South Korean reactor technologies. The publication recalls that in May 2022, Saudi Arabia sent an invitation to China, Russia, France and South Korea to participate in a tender for the construction of two nuclear power units with a capacity of up to 1.4 GWe each. According to experts, South Korea and Russia have an advantage in the competition, since the price of the French offer will be too high, and China has no experience in building nuclear power plants in a desert area. For South Korea, the biggest risk is associated with the fact that Saudi Arabia does not have a valid agreement with the IAEA on the implementation of safeguards in connection with the NPT. Instead, the Saudis and the agency cooperate on the basis of the Small Quantities Protocol (SQP), which is used for countries that do not conduct or conduct minimal nuclear activities. The absence of a safeguards agreement may lead to the fact that the proposal of South Korean nuclear scientists will be blocked by the United States. The fact is that the APR-1400 project was developed on the basis of Westinghouse technologies and its license purity is questionable, and the United States, when issuing an export permit for the APR-1400, may put forward non-proliferation conditions unacceptable for Saudi Arabia. Experts believe that in order to win the Saudi contest, South Korea must cooperate with the United States. Jung Bum-jin, a professor of atomic energy at Kyung Hee University, believes that from the point of view of geopolitics, the moment is right for the South Korean project in Saudi Arabia, since the victory of Rosatom in this competition would be an "undesirable result" for the United States. Topics: Asia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia Other news: 440 nuclear units are operating in the world, 54 units are under construction Construction of first CAP-1000 is started. Russian specialists present reports at IAEA Conference on Fast Reactors A total of 70 reports by Russian participants were presented at the conference. Specialists of SSC RIAR have successfully completed the modernization of the VK-50 reactor This is the first and only operating pressurized boiling reactor with natural coolant circulation in the country. |
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