hankyoreh

Belgium

By Nam Jong-young　

As the large-scale construction of nuclear power plants gets under way with the Lee Myung-back administration’s “nuclear renaissance” policy, observers predict that South Korea will have the world’s highest density of plants by the 2020s. A corresponding increase in risk is also expected, with an estimated 3.7 million residents to face direct damage in the event of a large-scale leak of radioactive material.

An analysis of World Nuclear Association (WNA) and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) data by the Hankyoreh on Sunday showed that in 2024, the final year of the fifth basic plan for electric power supply, South Korea’s per-kilometer nuclear power plant system capacity is expected rise to 365 kilowatts, some 3.5 times that of “nuclear superpower” France (103 kW) and twice that of Japan (177 kW). The figure is also far ahead of Belgium, which possessed the world’s highest power density in 2010 with 195kW per kilometer and is significantly smaller in area than South Korea.

This development is the result of the Lee Myung-bak administration’s designation of nuclear power as an alternative energy source in response to climate change, and an abrupt shift in policy toward increased power plant construction. The number of plants in South Korea is to increase from its current twenty-one to thirty-four by 2024. The system capacity of the thirteen newly built plants is to be 17,200 megawatts, nearly equivalent to the 18,716 MW total for all currently operating plants put together, meaning that in thirteen years there will be as many new power plants as the combined scale of all those currently existing.

Meanwhile, Belgium passed a federal law in 2003 for the stepwise phaseout of power plants according to social consensus, while Taiwan, which is completing two 1,300 MW power plants by 2012, has no plans to built any more due to opposition party objections. Japan has two plants under construction and another twelve in the planning stages, but the plans are facing a major snag following the Fukushima Dai-chi Nuclear Power Plant disaster, and France, which is currently building two, has no plans for additional construction.

“Having a high nuclear power plant system capacity per unit area suggests that the possibility of an accident and the scale of the potential damages may increase accordingly,” said Energy Justice Actions head Lee Heon-seok. “In particular, unlike other countries where they are built in isolated locations, Korea has its power plants densely packed near large cities, and a larger population is exposed to direct risk.”

Indeed, an analysis by the group using Statistics Korea census data from 2005 revealed that about 3.72 million people live within a thirty-kilometer radius of one of the country’s four nuclear power plant complexes. The number increases to 6.08 million if the calculation includes the Hanaro, a research reactor at Daejeon’s Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute where a “white warning” was issued in February due to a radiation leakage.

A total of 3.22 million people live near the Gori complex in Gijang County, Busan, some 1.09 million near the Wolseong complex in Gyeongju, North Gyeongsang Province, around 140 thousand near the Yeonggwang complex in Yeonggwang, South Jeolla Province, and about 60 thousand near the Uljin complex in Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province.

In particular, the data showed that some 820 thousand residents of Ulsan’s Jung, Nam, and Dong Districts will be living in the midst of the 18 plants of the Gori and Wolseong complexes by 2024. And with the operation of the eighth “New Gori” reactor by 2024, the Gori complex will have the world’s highest density of power plants, with a total of twelve. In the event of a series of reactor accidents such as that seen with the Fukushima plant, residents of Busan and Ulsan may suffer major damages due to the large-scale leakage of radioactive material.

However, a prompt evacuation in the case of a large-scale accident such as those at Fukushima or Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union would be impossible. In addition to the high population density of the surrounding region, it also lacks evacuation facilities, an adequate transportation system, and radiation protection equipment. The government has designated the region eight to ten kilometers around the plant as an emergency radiation planning zone and established protection facilities and evacuation training drills, but it has not established a radiation prevention system for the area outside of that region. Presently, the area within a thirty-kilometer radius of the Chernobyl plant is an evacuation zone in which access by the general public is forbidden, while resident evacuations and orders to stay inside were implemented for the area within a twenty to thirty-kilometer radius of the Fukushima plant.

“The extreme policy of doubling our nuclear power plants is being pursued without the agreement of South Korean citizens,” said Lee Heon-seok.

“Given that the rest of the world is reexamining plans to build plants, our government should also seek a social consensus on nuclear power policy.”

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]