The December 2009 contract by a South Korean consortium to provide four commercial nuclear reactors to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) signaled a new role for South Korea in the world nuclear energy market. The $20 billion deal indicates that South Korea (the Republic of Korea, ROK) has completed the transition from passive purchaser of turn-key nuclear plants in the 1970s to major nuclear technology supplier, now capable of competing with the largest and most experienced nuclear technology companies in the world. Because the plants being exported by South Korea are based on a U.S. design, U.S. export controls will continue to apply. Westinghouse obtained the necessary authorization in March 2010 from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to transfer information related to the technology to the UAE. A December 2009 peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement between the UAE and the United States, required for nuclear trade by Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, was intended to ease weapons proliferation concerns by stipulating that the UAE would not develop fuel cycle facilities to support its planned nuclear power program. The UAE program may establish a precedent for U.S. policy on future Korean exports to non-nuclear power nations, which is likely to be of continuing congressional interest. South Korea's growing status in the world nuclear market is an important consideration in the renewal of the existing U.S.-Korea nuclear cooperation agreement, which expires in March 2014. South Korea wants the new "123 agreement" to include advance U.S. consent for reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel and enrichment of uranium—sensitive fuel cycle technologies that are not currently permitted. The Korean Minister of the Knowledge Economy called for Korea to achieve "peaceful nuclear sovereignty" under future U.S. agreements. Korea contends that it needs to be able to offer full fuel cycle services to potential nuclear reactor customers in order to compete worldwide. The United States is concerned about the nuclear weapons proliferation implications of such an expansion of enrichment and reprocessing, along with its potential impact on other security issues on the Korean peninsula. Congress will have an opportunity to review any new agreement before it takes effect. With time running out to address the fundamental U.S. and Korean differences over reprocessing, the two countries announced on April 24, 2013, that they would extend the existing 123 agreement by two years to allow for additional negotiations. Legislation to authorize the two-year extension was introduced by Representative Royce on June 20, 2013 ( H.R. 2449 ). South Korea's nuclear technology progression has been similar to the earlier nuclear paths of France and Japan, which appear likely to be followed in the future by China. France, Japan, and now South Korea developed their nuclear power industries with technology and designs licensed from U.S. companies to supply domestic energy needs. In each case, the licensees assumed progressively greater responsibility for construction of the U.S.-designed units and eventually the engineering and design as well. The foreign firms now compete for nuclear plant contracts throughout the world, including the United States, either in consortia with their former U.S. licensors or independently. In the UAE deal, the South Korean consortium is headed by government-owned Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) and includes other major Korean industrial companies that are involved in Korea's rapidly growing domestic nuclear power plant construction program. The consortium also includes Pittsburgh-based Westinghouse Electric Company, which currently owns the U.S. design on which the Korean design is based, and the Japanese industrial conglomerate Toshiba, now the majority owner of Westinghouse. Although Korean companies now take the lead on design and construction of Korea's nuclear power plants, Westinghouse still provides support under the design license. Such support typically includes components, instrumentation and control equipment, and technical and engineering services. The Korean plant to be built in the UAE, the APR-1400 model, is a modified version of the System 80+ design developed by the U.S. firm Combustion Engineering (C-E), which was later acquired by Westinghouse. The total value of components and services to be provided for the UAE project by Westinghouse and other U.S. companies is estimated at about $2 billion, according to a financial package approved in September 2012 by the U.S. Export-Import Bank. When the construction of South Korea's first commercial nuclear power plant began in 1972, the South Korean economy was about 7.5% the size of Japan's, and the country's per-capita income was slightly lower than that of North Korea. With such a relatively small industrial base, South Korea's plans to finance and operate a fleet of nuclear power plants could have been considered overly ambitious, and its long-term plans to master the new technology might have seemed unrealistic. But the subsequent growth of the South Korean economy—with per-capita income now rivaling other developed nations and GDP nearly 20% of Japan's—turned out to be more than sufficient to sustain the country's planned nuclear power development. South Korea launched its nuclear power program through the government-owned Korea Electric Company (now Korea Electric Power Corporation, KEPCO), which purchased the country's first nuclear power units from Westinghouse. Those first plants were ordered on a turn-key basis, in which the foreign supplier delivered a completed plant with minimal Korean industry input. As shown in Figure 1 , the first of these turn-key units, Kori 1, began operating in 1978. Westinghouse supplied the reactor and other components of the nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) and constructed the plant, and other western firms provided the turbine-generator and architect/engineering services. Wolsong 1 and Kori 2, coming on line in 1983, were also turn-key units, with all major components and construction services provided primarily by non-Korean companies. After those first three units, Korean firms took over the construction work on subsequent plants, beginning with Kori 3, which began commercial operation in 1985. However, the NSSS, turbine-generators, and architect/engineering services continued to be provided primarily by non-Korean companies, including Westinghouse, Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), and the French firm Framatome, which had previously licensed its design from Westinghouse. That arrangement continued for the next six units, which came on line from 1995-1999. In 1987, KEPCO embarked on an effort to establish a standard Korean design, selecting the System 80 design from the U.S. firm Combustion Engineering (C-E) as the basis. The System 80 design had been used for three identical units nearing completion at Palo Verde, AZ. Combustion Engineering won the competition for the Korean standard design contract by agreeing to full technology transfer, according to KEPCO. A 10-year technology license agreement was signed in 1987 and extended for 10 more years in 1997. The U.S. contractors for the turbine-generators (General Electric) and architect/engineering services (Sargent & Lundy) agreed to transfer key technology as well. All of the major U.S. companies working on the new C-E plants agreed to serve as subcontractors to Korean firms: Combustion Engineering to Hanjung (now Doosan), General Electric (GE) also to Hanjung, and Sargent & Lundy (S&L) to Korea Power Engineering Company (KOPEC), which is majority owned by KEPCO. Yonggwang 3 and 4 and Ulchin 3 and 4, which began operating from 1995 to 1999, were constructed under that arrangement. A similar partnership was formed with Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL) to build Wolsong 2-4, completed during 1997 through 1999. Plant construction continued to be carried out by Korean companies. Components and work shared by Korean and foreign firms are shown in Figure 1 . Korean reactor designers worked with C-E, which became part of Westinghouse in 2000, to develop a standard Korean design from the System 80 model. This effort resulted in the 1,000 megawatt Optimized Power Reactor (OPR-1000). The seven OPR-1000 units that have been completed since 1999 were built and constructed almost entirely by Korean firms. However, some key components continued to be supplied or heavily supported by non-Korean firms, constituting a small percentage of each nuclear unit's total cost. Development of a larger and more advanced model of the Korean standard design was based on the C-E System 80+ design that received U.S. standard design certification from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in May 1997. The Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) helped develop the U.S. design, complementing work on the Korean version of the design that began in 1992. The Korean design was largely completed by 1999 and was designated the APR-1400. South Korea currently has four nuclear units under construction, one OPR-1000 and three APR-1400s, to be completed between 2013 and 2017. Five more APR-1400s are planned to be completed between 2018 and 2021. That construction program would increase the country's nuclear power reactors from 23 to 32, and nuclear power generating capacity from 20,800 megawatts to 32,500 megawatts. South Korea's long-term electricity plan calls for increasing nuclear capacity to 42,700 megawatts by 2030, the equivalent of about seven additional APR-1400s after 2021. South Korea generated 35% of its electricity from nuclear plants in 2011 and plans to increase that share to 59% by 2030. Ever since South Korea completed the first nuclear unit in which Korean firms participated in all phases of development—Yonggwang 3 in 1995—the country has opened an average of about one unit every 18 months.