Commerce Ministry “Considers Multiple Nuclear Power Sites”

Cho Seok, Nuclear Site Development Support Team head at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy, said yesterday, “As one of the alternatives in selecting a nuclear power site, we are considering having the nuclear powerhouse in more than one place.”

Cho, on “Sohn Seok-hee’s All Eyes To Here,” an MBC radio talk show, said, “Currently, used fuels are preserved along with other low/medium-level nuclear wastes, but we might consider making a fundamental change in this method.”

His remark is attracting the people’s attention since it implies the possibility of choosing more than one site for a nuclear power center.

Waste is categorized into low/medium-level and high-level according to the intensity of radioactivity. The facilities to be built are supposed to store used fuels in both categories in the same site.

Based on the explanation given by Cho, a method to store low/medium-level wastes and used fuels in separate places may be considered.

He explained, “As it appears not possible to select the nuclear site by this year, we will try to prevent the side impacts of this selection process delay by utilizing the capability of the nuclear power site at its maximum to store wastes inside it. We have to wait and see until next month before deciding how to proceed on this issue since there are both opinions, supporting and opposing—for instance, in Buan, South Jeolla Province—that is making the residents’ voting hard to predict.”

Chi-Young Shin higgledy@donga.com