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| Fig. 1: Kori Nuclear Reactor complex, before the shutdown of Kori 1. Right to left: Kori-1, Kori-2, Kori-3, Kori-4. (Source: Wikimedia Commons) |
After the disastrous meltdown in Fukushima in 2011, many South Koreans began to be concerned about the nuclear power plants in South Korea. Concerns intensified when the earthquake struck Gyeongju, one of the southern cities of Korea, in 2016. Soon after the earthquake, the movie "Pandora" - a disaster film that evolves around the explosion of a nuclear power plant after an earthquake - was released, increasing public worry about the dangers of nuclear power plants stil further. The worries were not just about the age of many nuclear power plants in South Korea - for instance, the Kori nuclear power plant that operated for 39 years - but also the environmental degradation that radiation and nuclear waste would cause.
In 2017, after former president Park Geun-hye was impeached, a new presidential election took place, and nuclear energy was an important campaign issue. Most of the candidates promised anti-nuclear energy policies. Candidate Moon Jae-in, who promised progressive denuclearization and a move to renewable energy, was elected in June 2017. His government promised to completely phase out nuclear power by 2040. As he promised, he made his first step towards nuclear phaseout by discussing the cancellation of the construction of the new nuclear power plants Kori No. 5 and Kori No. 6. After going through the review of the committee, however, the two power plants remained under construction. However, the government decided to shut down Kori Unit 1, Korea's first nuclear reactor. On June 19 of 2017, The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (of South Korea) announced that Kori Unit 1 had ceased operations at midnight of June 18, 2017 - after 40 years of operation. [1]
According to 2017 Statistics of Electric Power in Korea, in 2017, nuclear energy accounted for about 25.7% of total electric power generation. [2] On the other hand, renewable energy accounted for about 4.16% of total electric power generation. Moreover, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration's Country Analysis Brief: South Korea, nuclear energy accounted for 11% of total primary energy consumption in 2017 while renewable energy accounted for only 2% in the same year. [3] According to the very recent 3rd Korea energy master plan recommendation, which was released in November 7th of 2018, Korea's ministry of trade, industry, and energy is planning to increase the use of renewable energy to 25-40% by 2040. [4] Coincidentally, this year is the year nuclear reactors would completely phased out.
South Korea is one of the world's leading energy importers. Although South Korea lacks domestic energy resources, from the statistics, we can clearly see that nuclear power plays a significant role as energy source in South Korea. Safety of nuclear energy has been studied widely, and South Korea has proven capability to run nuclear power plants safely. [5,6] However, increasing the renewable energy use to up to 40% seems almost implausible at this moment. Therefore, South Korea has to be more cautious about the plan of completely phasing out of nuclear energy.
© KiJung Park. The author warrants that the work is the author's own and that Stanford University provided no input other than typesetting and referencing guidelines. The author grants permission to copy, distribute and display this work in unaltered form, with attribution to the author, for noncommercial purposes only. All other rights, including commercial rights, are reserved to the author.
[1] D.-S. Kim, "Korea's Oldest Nuclear Reactor Ceases Operation," Korea Herald, 18 Jun 17.
[2] "Statistics of Electric Power in Korea," 한국전력공사 [Korea Electric Power Corporation], June 2018.
[3] "Country Analysis Brief: South Korea," U.S. Energy Information Administration, July 2018.
[4] "3rd Korea Energy Master Plan Recommendation (2019-2040)," 산업통상자원부 [South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy], November 2018.
[5] A. Cook, "Nuclear Power Plant Safety," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2018.
[6] J.-L. Watson, "Safety and Security Considerations in Nuclear Waste Transportation," Physics 241, Stanford University, Winter 2017.
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