Greed and corruption blew up South Korea’s nuclear industry

Three days after a tsunami battered the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan, South Korean president Lee Myung-bak was celebrating. Two years earlier, a South Korean consortium had won an $18.6 billion contract to build four nuclear reactors on the ground where Lee now stood—at the time, the single biggest reactor deal in history. Park continued Lee’s nuclear expansion policy, pledging to increase South Korea’s reactor fleet to 39 units by 2035 and making sales trips to potential client states such as the Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia.

Source: www.technologyreview.com