Shin Kori reactors: To be or not to be

Ad hoc committee to be launched today; decision due in Oct.

The fate of two reactors at the Shin Kori Nuclear Power Plant in the southeastern city of Ulsan is critical for the country because it will set the tone of the administration’s energy policy.

President Moon Jae-in is pushing to deliver on his campaign promise to phase out nuclear power plants. The state-run Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) has suspended work on the two reactors for three months — following a presidential order — fueling debate over the propriety and legitimacy of the decision.

The government will launch a nine-member review committee today, which will hear public opin- ions over the next three months.

The committee will select jurors from among ordinary citizens who will make a final call on whether the construction is permanently halted. It will make the decision by the end of October.

At a roundtable discussion that The Korea Times hosted last week, experts showed a stark difference in views about the safety of the No. 5 and 6 reactors.

Pro-nuclear experts said the three-month deliberation period was “absolutely not enough,” while anti-nuclear experts said the time was sufficient.

Regardless, they agreed that the decision would be a watershed for Korea’s energy industry.

“The reactors, if completed, will be the most up-to-date version of the third-generation type, equipped with intensive safety features,” said Kyung Hee University engineering professor Whang Joo-ho in Yongin.

“I cannot understand why they shut them down despite such technological breakthroughs.”

Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute senior research adviser Chang Moon-hee said the reactors’ safety had been thoroughly vetted.

“The risks of accidents in 10 reactors concentrated in Ulsan and Busan, including Shin Kori No. 5 and 6, have been assessed by Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission,” Chang said.

“No. 5 and 6 are APR1400, the same as the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah reactors that Korea built after beating France and Japan in stringent safety tests overseen by America’s Nuclear Regulatory Commission.”

But their opponents said that no matter how good the reactors may be, their concentration in southeastern port cities was dangerously high.

Seoul National University professor of environmental and energy policy Yun Sun-jin said having 10 reactors next to more than 4 million people was “unprecedented in international cases.”

“Among four nuclear power plants in Korea, Kori Nuclear Power Plant in Busan is close to the highest population density,” Yun said.

“The No. 5 and 6 reactors are each capable of generating 1,400 megawatts, considerably more than one in a region in Pakistan with more than 7 million residents that generates 500 megawatts.

“The reactors’ concentration poses huge risks to the nation’s electricity security because they can all go down at once in the case of a natural disaster.”

She said work on the reactors must be stopped even at the cost of 100 billion won ($89 million).

University of Ulsan professor of industrial engineering Kim Yearn-min said that because Korea had too many reactors, spent nuclear fuel had to be condensed when stored, posing greater accident risks than in other nations.

“If an accident happened around such dangerous structures in a city where sea trade, heavy and chemical industries, shipbuilding and automobile manufacturing have been developed, the outcome would be catastrophic,” Kim said.

He said people were the national energy industry’s “human guinea pigs.”

Pro-nuclear experts consider the reactors as a global product that can last safely and help improve people’s lives.

Chang said closing the reactors would deprive the country of a valuable export.

“The reactors’ shutdown opens wide a legislature discrepancy between nuclear safety laws and energy laws but was enforced by a few words from President Moon,” Chang said, raising the possibility of a legal loophole to prevent the shutdown.

Whang also said Korea must make the most of the nuclear power technologies it had accumulated.

“Why should we abandon our highly competent technologies and skills?” he said. “What would other countries say if we try to export nuclear power plants while stopping construction at home?”

However, anti-nuclear experts said quality of life mattered more than short-term economic gains.

“The quality of our lives is at risk — we are passing on the danger to the next generation,” Kim said.

“We already have too many reactors in heavily populated areas. Before it’s too late, we must carry out plans to phase out nuclear power plants.”

They also criticized KHNP for not releasing the business case or the electricity rates behind the reactors’ construction.

“Because the government protects KHNP with money, the electricity producer has less financial responsibility than it should,” Yun said. “The gap will be filled by a tax on citizens. It’s comparable to Japan’s Tokyo Electric Power, which, despite spending 220 trillion won spent on damage control following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, still made a profit because of government support.”