hankyoreh

Uhm Jae-sik, chairperson of Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, presides over the commission’s 113th meeting in Seoul on Jan. 10. (Yonhap News)

A controversial expansion of MACSTOR (modular air-cooled canister storage) facilities for the interim storage of spent nuclear fuel has been approved for the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant in North Gyeongsang Province. Groups opposing nuclear power criticized the expansion as having been “forced through” by the central government.

The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) announced on Oct. 10 that a motion to allow alteration of the operation of Wolseong reactors 1 to 4 (second-stage consolidated dry storage facilities for spent nuclear fuel) had been approved at its 113th regular meeting. Of the eight commissioners, six of them (Chairperson Uhm Jae-sik, Secretary-General Jang Bo-hyon, Kim Jae-yeong, Lee Gyeong-u, Lee Byeong-ryeong, and Jang Chandong) argued in favor of the approval, while two others (Kim Ho-cheol and Jin Sang-hyeon) called for renewed discussion.

The issue was closely contested during a review and voting process that lasted for over three hours that afternoon. The commissioners in favor stressed the fact that technical reviews have been completed in terms of areas such as site safety. Lee Byeong-ryeong, who served as a development official for the Korean nuclear reactor model, explained, “There’s a technical report based on three-and-a-half years of examination by experts, as well as an opinion in the Korea Legal Aid Corporation analysis stating that a review and vote would not be out of line.”

“If the permission is not granted, the use of nuclear energy for power generation will become impossible, which will result in issues with electricity supplies,” he said.

On the opposing side, Kim Ho-cheol, an attorney with the law firm Hankyul and chairman of the group MINBYUN-Lawyers for a Democratic Society, said it would be “a problematic action for the commission to vote with reviewing the content of the accident management plan.”

“We need to develop measures in response to the accident management plan, including preparations for a scenario involving an aircraft crash incident,” Kim insisted.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power (KHNP) submitted a request to the NSSC in April 2016 for permission to alter operations to expand MACSTOR facilities. Its argument was that with seven reactors in operation, MACSTOR was nearing capacity, requiring the construction of additional facilities. MACSTOR is a second-stage dry storage facility for spent nuclear fuel from heavy-water reactor nuclear power plants such as Wolseong. Spent nuclear fuel rods are kept in cold storage in (heavy) water for six years before being transferred to MACSTOR.

At present, 318,480 bundles of spent nuclear fuel are in storage at the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant, either in MACSTOR or in dry storage canisters created prior to MACSTOR’s introduction. As of September 2019, the amount stood at 93.1% of the storage maximum. The expansion decision will result in the acquisition of additional storage space amounting to a total of 168,000 bundles of spent nuclear fuel.

The decision is also likely to spark further controversy over the public debate process for spent nuclear fuel management measures. In a press conference on the morning of Jan. 10 at the National Assembly with the Justice Party’s eco-friendly energy headquarters, 11 members of the expert review group Committee for the Reexamination of Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Policy called for a halt to the public discussion schedule.

“The re-examination committee has been half-heartedly operating an expert review group since November of last year and is now trying to use this a basis for pushing the public debate process through,” the members said.

In a telephone interview with the Hankyoreh, Seok Gwang-hoon, an expert committee member with Green Korea United, explained, “Countries like the US or UK with a long history of using nuclear power have independent agencies with authority and responsibility set up to address the spent nuclear fuel issue.”

“The government will never establish the trust among the public that is of such paramount importance for the nuclear power issue when it attempts to use the expert group’s activities as something along the lines of a convenient service assignment,” Seok insisted.

In addition to objections from local communities and civic groups, the MACSTOR expansion plan for the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant has also been a source of conflict among residents in different regions over the associated compensation system. Experts have argued that the management of spent nuclear fuel entails the establishment of more systematic and sociocultural opinion-gathering standards rather than the building of new nuclear power plants.

“The MACSTOR expansion motion may have been passed, but discussions with local residents have not even begun, and citizens of Ulsan, which is geographically closer than downtown Gyeongju, have been excluded,” said Yang-Lee Won-young, secretary general of Energy Transition Korea.

By Kim Eun-hyoung, staff reporter