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Delayed Nuclear Waste Disposal Center Plans

Posted September. 16, 2004 21:58,   

한국어

The deadline for the preliminary application for the construction of a nuclear waste disposal center was Wednesday, but not one local government stepped forward, turning back the construction project for the disposal center, which has been dragging on for seven months, to its starting point.

It takes approximately four years for a site to be selected and completed, and with the existing storage facilities expected to become saturated in 2008, serious setbacks in nuclear waste disposal are expected.

Minister Lee Hee-beom of the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy held a press conference at the Gwacheon Government Complex on Thursday, September 16 and announced, “The government will try to make plans in October, and will push for the construction of a nuclear waste disposal center through a transparent and new process.”

This statement means that, with the existing system breaking down at the preliminary application level, the original schedule will be completely aborted. The site selection for process for a disposal site is entering a new phase.

Minister Lee added, “In the case of Buan County, which is the only one left at the preliminary application level in the current proceedings for site selection, the local citizen ballot is somewhat difficult,” expressing his negative view of the ballot. If it following the existing procedure, the Buan population referendum must be done by the end of November.

According to the original schedule, Buan County in Chonbuk Province is scheduled to hold a referendum on whether or not to allow the construction of a disposal center in November. If it passes, it will start the formal application process in December.

However, if the government accepts the Uri Party’s intervention proposal, which includes the discontinuance of the current site selection procedure, everything will start again from the beginning.

The government says that they still have not made the final decision, but because of the current situation in which no other local government has applied in the preliminary period except Buan, it seems that the government has no choice but to accept the measure presented by the ruling party and civic groups.

However, the problem is that if the government goes through the process of collecting public opinions that the ruling party has requested, the site selection process will be delayed again.

The organization to make it a public issue is formed of the government, National Assembly, and civic groups, and they will try to tune the different views over atomic power policies, including the suspension matter of the construction of the power plant units for the Shin Kori nuclear power site.

According to the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Company, the amount of “used energy” disposed of, which is highly radioactive, was 6,588 tons last year, which marks 67.2 percent of the entire disposal capacity of the country.

At this rate, the disposal storehouse in Wolsong will be saturated in 2006, Ulchin in 2007, and Kori and Yongwang in 2008.

Since the process of site selection for the waste disposal center takes approximately four years, a situation where nuclear waste cannot be disposed of properly may arise if the site selection procedure is delayed.

Nucleonics Professor Park Gun-cheol of Seoul National University stressed, “When considering a ballot to confirm the local populations’ opinions, it will take quite a long time to complete the construction. We need to hurry the site selection process.”



Jong sik Kong Yong Park kong@donga.com parky@donga.com