The construction site of TerraPower's Kemmerer Unit 1, a fourth-generation Natrium reactor, is seen in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on May 28. The Natrium design is among those lined up for prereview by Korea's nuclear safety regulator.KANG TAE-HWA
Korea's ambitions to power its AI and chip boom with small modular reactors (SMR) are running into a regulatory wall as government documents show the country's nuclear regulator won't have review standards in place until 2032, four years after SMR developers plan to start seeking construction permits.
Korean and foreign developers plan to file three SMR prereview applications in 2027 and five in 2028, according to a regulatory strategy the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) submitted to ruling Democratic Party (DP) Rep. Hwang Jung-a.
In a prereview, a developer submits documents before applying for a construction permit, and the regulator checks what needs to be supplemented.
Three designs are lined up for 2027, including the Natrium reactor of U.S. developer TerraPower, which is working with a consortium of SK Innovation and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power. Prereviews of five designs are set to follow in 2028, along with a construction permit application for the homegrown i-SMR. TerraPower and other developers plan to apply for construction permits in 2028 and 2029.
The NSSC lacks both the standards and the staff to keep up. Korea's current nuclear technical standards were written for large light-water reactors, which use water as a coolant. Many SMRs are non-light-water designs cooled by sodium, a liquid metal, or by molten salt, which makes the existing standards hard to apply.
The commission plans to develop tailored technical standards and a technology-inclusive, risk-informed and performance-based review methodology, but its target date is 2032. Companies that apply for construction permits from 2028 would likely have to wait three to four years for review standards to be in place.
The construction site of TerraPower's Kemmerer Unit 1, a fourth-generation Natrium reactor, is seen in Kemmerer, Wyoming, on May 28. The Natrium design is among those lined up for prereview by Korea's nuclear safety regulator.KANG TAE-HWA
Only one unit at the NSSC handles SMR licensing and standards: the small modular reactor safety division, a temporary body. Each reactor design needs 15 to 20 reviewers, but 18 are tied up with the domestic i-SMR alone. The commission has little capacity left to review other designs.
The commission's SMR staff needs to reach 33 in 2027, 37 in 2028 and 39 in 2029 and 2030, by its own estimate. However, interministerial talks on securing the staff have been pushed back to the second half of this year.
Regulators elsewhere are moving faster. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has elevated its advanced reactor unit to a full office with 310 to 330 staff and has begun approving construction of commercial SMRs. It issued a construction permit for TerraPower's Kemmerer Unit 1 in Wyoming in March, its first approval of a commercial non-light-water reactor in more than 40 years.
Democratic Party Rep. Hwang Jung-a questions officials during the National Assembly science and ICT committee's parliamentary audit at the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute in Daejeon on Oct. 24, 2025. Hwang obtained the nuclear regulator's small modular reactor strategy, which sets tailored review standards on a 2032 timeline.YONHAP
Britain's Office for Nuclear Regulation is handling six reactor designs on a separate track and training more than 30 inspectors for its Advanced Nuclear Technologies team to speed up licensing.
Korea's SMR technology itself is highly rated. In an assessment by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency, the homegrown i-SMR scored 22 points and SMART100 scored 19, above the overall average of 17.38. However, the Korean designs scored low on licensing and siting, which has been taken as a sign that the country's regulatory system lags behind its technology.
"Our SMRs are recognized worldwide for their technology, but they are stuck at the threshold of moving on to demonstration and construction," DP's Hwang said. “To review them on time while keeping safety intact, the regulator needs the expertise and the staff so that the critical window for commercializing SMRs is not lost.”
This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
