Korea, US unveil 3 investments in energy projects

Seoul and Washington unveiled plans for three investment projects in the United States — a $22.3 billion Texas gas-fired power plant for data centers, a framework to build eight large nuclear reactors and a review of an Alaska liquefied natural gas (LNG) project. The projects are part of a $200 billion investment commitment under a Korea-U.S. agreement signed in November 2025, with the two governments seeking to expand cooperation in energy and other strategic industries while creating new openings for Korean suppliers in the U.S. market. The Texas power plant project, dubbed Project Star, calls for a 6,472-megawatt combined-cycle gas power plant in Encinal to supply electricity directly to artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. The plant's initial 1,952-megawatt gas turbine phase is scheduled to begin commercial operations in 2029, with the facility's full-capacity operations expected in 2032. The plant will use a tolling-style power purchase agreement (PPA), under which data center operators pay a fixed charge for contracted capacity and bear variable costs such as fuel. The PPA