South Korea’s nuclear mafia
Japan's corrupt 'nuclear village' gave us the Fukushima disaster and there's every reason to be concerned about South Korea's corrupt 'nuclear mafia'.
Zion Lights’ latest substack post is a vacuous puff-piece about South Korea’s nuclear power industry. Therefore I’ve copied below a few articles I wrote for Nuclear Monitor about South Korea’s corrupt and dangerous nuclear industry.
Literally everything in Lights’ post could have been lifted from a nuclear industry promotional piece. Just one thing caught my eye: the three countries with the best record for building reactors relatively quickly are Japan, South Korea and China according to a table included in Lights’ post. Those three countries all have seriously corrupt nuclear industries. Correlation, causation, coincidence?
Lights is a British nuclear power advocate who previously worked for self-confessed liar, climate denier and MAGA lunatic Michael Shellenberger. You can read more about Lights here, Shellenberger here, and you can read Extinction Rebellion’s important statement about both of them here.
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South Korea’s nuclear export ambitions
This is an excerpt from a 2017 Nuclear Monitor article, with some light editing to update the content.
In 2009, a KEPCO-led consortium won the contract to build four power reactors in the United Arab Emirates. In 2010, boosted by the UAE contract, South Korea's Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy set a target of winning contracts to build 80 power reactors overseas by 2030, and in 2015 KEPCO had a target of winning overseas contracts for six reactors by 2020.6 But all those targets have come to absolutely nothing ‒ KEPCO and KHNP haven't won any reactor construction contracts since the 2009 UAE contract.
South Korea has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with at least 27 countries8 but those agreements aren't leading to reactor contracts.
On 2 July 2018, KEPCO was short-listed to bid for a two-reactor project in Saudi Arabia along with consortia based in the US, France, China and Russia. South Korea also hopes to build 'SMART' small modular reactors in Saudi Arabia but no other country ‒ including South Korea itself ‒ has built a SMART reactor.
KEPCO was selected as a preferred bidder in December 2017 for Toshiba's NuGen reactor project in Moorside, Britain. But that project went bust.
KHNP CEO Chung Jae-hoon said in June 2018 that every effort is being made to search for opportunities in "strategic markets," including Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and the Philippines. "We will knock on any door, seeking whatever benefits we can get. The Korean nuclear industry can survive as long as it finds ways to complement it business model," he said.10 However not all of those four countries will build new reactors; perhaps none of them will.
South Korea's nuclear cooperation agreement with South Africa was ruled to be illegal by the South African High Court last year. And South Africa's nuclear project is unlikely to be revived after the ousting of former President Jacob Zuma.
South Korea hoped to export reactors to Vietnam, but Vietnam cancelled its nuclear power program in 2016.
South Korea's attempts to get into the Indian nuclear market have come to nothing.8,11
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been slowly assessing South Korea's APR1400 reactor design but even if that review is completed and successful, there is no prospect of new reactors in the US for the foreseeable future.
References:
6. World Nuclear Association, Dec 2017, 'Nuclear Power in South Korea', www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/south-korea.aspx
8. Robert Einhorn, Fred F. McGoldrick, James L. Tyson, and Duyeon Kim, 16 Jan 2015, 'ROK-U.S. Civil Nuclear and Nonproliferation Collaboration in Third Countries', wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ROK-US-Civil-Nuclear-and-Nonproliferation-Collaboration-in-Third-Countries.pdf
10. Yonhap, 8 June 2018, 'S. Korean nuclear operator turns outward to foreign markets', www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20180608000465
11. Anirban Bhaumik, 12 Jan 2014, 'New Delhi wary of nuclear cooperation with Seoul', www.deccanherald.com/content/380183/delhi-wary-nuclear-cooperation-seoul.html
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Nuclear corruption and the partial reform of South Korea's nuclear mafia
Jim Green, Nuclear Monitor #887, 17 June 2020, https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/887/nuclear-monitor-887-17-june-2020
The corrupt behavior of Japan's 'nuclear village' ‒ and the very existence of the nuclear village ‒ were root causes of the March 2011 Fukushima disaster and a string of earlier accidents.1 In the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster, academic Richard Tanter identified a worldwide pattern of nuclear corruption:2
"During the eighteen months from the beginning of 2012 to mid- 2013, major corruption incidents occurred in the nuclear power industry in every country currently seeking to export nuclear reactors: the United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Russia, France, and China. A number of other countries that operate or plan to have nuclear power plants also had major corruption cases, including Lithuania, Bulgaria, and Pakistan; moreover, serious allegations of corruption were raised in Egypt, India, Jordan, Nigeria, Slovakia, South Africa, and Taiwan.
"In the Korean case, systemic nuclear industry corruption was found; in Canada, deep corporate corruption within the largest nuclear engineering corporation was one matter, and bribery of nuclear technology consuming countries' senior ministers was another. In Russia, the issue was persistent, deep seated, and widespread corruption in state-owned and private nuclear industry companies, with profound implications for the safety of Russian nuclear industry exports.
"Two cases in nuclear technology importing countries, Lithuania and Bulgaria, revealed large-scale bribery involving government, the nuclear industry, and foreign (US and Russian) companies.
"Post-Soviet bloc geostrategic energy interests are central to both stories. The profound influence of organized crime in national energy policy, and on a transnational basis, is revealed in the Bulgarian and Russian cases. Suspicions are widespread and allegations common in the cases of India, Taiwan, and Bangladesh, but confirmed evidence remains weak."
Since Tanter's 2013 article, more information has surfaced regarding corruption in Russia's nuclear industry3-4 and Russia's nuclear dealings with India.5-7 The corruption associated with the abandoned Westinghouse nuclear power project in South Carolina is gradually coming to light.8 Corruption has been uncovered in the nuclear programs of South Africa9-15, Brazil16, Ukraine17 and, no doubt, elsewhere.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) noted in its 2015 Nuclear Technology Review that counterfeit, fraudulent and suspect items (CFSIs) "are becoming an increasing concern for operating organizations and regulators"18 And again in 2019, an IAEA report noted that CFSIs "are of increasing concern in the nuclear industry and generally throughout the industrial and commercial supply chains."19 The 2019 report noted that CFSIs "can pose immediate and potential threats to worker safety, facility performance, the public and the environment, and they can negatively impact facility costs."
South Korea's 'nuclear mafia'
In the late 2000s, it was anticipated that South Korea's nuclear capacity would rise from 18 gigawatts (GW) to 43 GW by 2030. The current plan is to reduce the number of reactors from a peak of 26 in 2024 to 17 reactors (approx. 17 GW) in 2034.20 Thus the ambitions have been more than halved. In recent years the South Korean government has shut down the Kori-1 and Wolsong-1 reactors, and suspended or cancelled plans for six further reactors.
Corruption scandals are partly responsible for the massive downgrading of South Korea's nuclear power ambitions.21 A detailed article on the scandals by Philip Andrews-Speed from the National University of Singapore has recently been published in the Journal of World Energy Law & Business.22 Importantly, Andrews-Speed notes that the problems only partially been resolved.
The first scandal to come to light involved a scarcely-believable cascade of human errors and technical faults at the Kori-1 reactor in 2012. Andrews-Speed writes:22
"The sequence of events that led to the station blackout began on 4 February 2012 when the management carried out a planned shutdown of the reactor for refuelling. On 9 February, the plant suffered a loss of power due to human error during a test of the main generator. After this, one of the two emergency diesel generators failed to start. The other generator was undergoing maintenance. In addition, the connection to one of the offsite auxiliary transformers failed to work as it had not been properly set up after maintenance; and the other offsite transformer was just entering maintenance. This caused a station blackout lasting 11 minutes 43 seconds. Cooling was lost for 11 minutes. The plant manager only reported the event to the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission on 12 March, more than one month later. ... The plant manager justified the decision not to report the blackout on the risk of loss of public confidence and of credibility of the plant with the management of the operating company."
Not long after, a much broader pattern of corruption began to come to light:
"Investigations of 101 companies revealed a wide range of illegal activities including bribery, overpaying, preferential treatment and favouritism, limiting competition in bidding, accepting parts with fraudulent or even no certificate, and collusion by parties in the falsification of testing reports."
An investigation by the Korea Institute for Nuclear Safety showed that 2,114 test reports had been falsified by material suppliers and equipment manufacturers; that a further 62 equipment qualification documents (environmental and seismic qualification) were falsified between 1996 and 2012; and that a further 3,408 test reports and 53 qualification reports could not be verified or were unclear.22,23 Over 7,000 reactor parts were replaced in the aftermath of the scandal.23
Andrews-Speed details the corruption that probably had the greatest consequences for reactor safety:22
"A very special case of systematic counterfeiting came to light in May 2013 when it was revealed that safety-grade control cable installed in four reactors had been falsely certified. The supplier of the cable was a Korean company, JS Cable. In 2004, KHNP decided for the first time to purchase cable from a domestic rather than foreign supplier. JS Cable submitted a bid to KEPCO E&C, despite not having the capability to make cable to the required specifications. KHNP awarded the contract to JS Cable with the first delivery due in 2017, on the condition that the cable met the required standards.
"JS Cable chose Saehan TEP to test the cable, but this firm lacked the capacity to undertake the required loss of coolant testing. So Saehan TEP outsourced the process to the Canadian testing firm, RCM Technologies (RCMT). RCMT tested six samples, but only one passed. JS Cable sent six further samples. Only two passed, but these two samples were illegitimate as they had not been exposed to radiation before testing. In response, KHNP instructed KEPCO E&C to make the test results acceptable. So KEPCO E&C, Saehan TEP and JS cable agreed together to modify the test reports from RCMT to show that all the samples met the required standards."
The corruption also affected South Korea's reactor construction project in the UAE. Hyundai Heavy Industries employees offered bribes to KHNP officials in charge of the supply of parts for reactors to be exported to the UAE.24 And ‒ incredibly ‒ the reactor contract was underpinned by a secret military side-agreement, signed without the knowledge or approval of South Korea's National Assembly, and containing a clause that does not require approval from the National Assembly to engage in conflict, should there be a request for military assistance from the UAE.25-28 The pact includes a clause that would obligate South Korea to intervene militarily to protect the UAE in the event of a crisis, in addition to the deployment of South Korean special forces and the ongoing supply of military equipment.25
Structural problems
Andrews-Speed describes the interlinking elements of South Korea's 'nuclear mafia' involving nuclear power companies, research centers, regulators, government, and educational institutions. He notes that the country's nuclear industry possesses some special features that make it particularly prone to corruption, relating to the structure and governance of the industry, and its close links with the government.
Both KHNP and KEPCO E&C are monopolists in their fields, and both suffer from poor corporate governance and weak internal management:22
"The poor corporate governance has its roots in the way in which the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy is directly involved in the management of KEPCO and its subsidiaries and in the political nature of appointments of many board members and senior managers. The weak internal management was particularly pertinent to safety because, before it was amended in 2014, the Act on Nuclear Safety and Security did not address the safety standards of parts and equipment. Thus, the selling of sub-standard components was not illegal and the task of supply chain oversight was left to KHNP to manage."
Improvements and lingering problems
Andrews-Speed notes that the Kori-1 blackout and the systemic supply-chain corruption led to efforts to curb corruption. These included revisions to the Nuclear Safety Act giving greater powers to the newly created Nuclear Safety and Security Commission; placing new reporting obligations on all actors in the nuclear supply chain; and broader legislation and regulations governing public procurement, the conduct of public officials and corruption.
But it is doubtful whether these reforms are sufficient:22
"The principal obstacles to progress relate to power and structure. The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission lacks the authority of nuclear regulators in some other countries for a number of reasons. First, after 2013 the status of the Commission Chair was reduced from Ministerial to Vice-Ministerial level and their reporting line was changed from the President to the Prime Minister. The reason for this change of status related more to the career mobility of civil servants than to the governance of nuclear safety. Nevertheless, the consequences for the authority of the Commission have been significant. It cannot now issue any regulations without the approval of the Ministry of Justice and other Ministries. This results in delay and occasional suppression of new regulations. In addition, it has been alleged that the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission redacts and sanitizes the safety reports of the Korea Institute Nuclear Safety. The consequences of this practice on safety are exacerbated by the ability of ministries, politicians and KEPCO subsidiaries to block the tough enforcement of safety standards.
"Second, the National Assembly provides little oversight of the Commission. Instead, authority lies solely with the government. Finally, the term of the Commission Chair is just three years which is shorter than that of the nation's president which is five years. This contrasts with the situation in the USA, for example, where the Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is appointed for a five-year term, one year longer than that of the US President. As a result, Korean Presidents have significant influence over the nuclear regulator given their remit to appoint all nine members of the Commission. Taken together, these three factors enhance the power of the executive over the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission.
"The structural weaknesses within Korea's nuclear industry are multiple. The Ministries of Finance and Strategy and of Trade, Industry and Energy exert excessive influence over state-owned enterprises, including KHNP and KEPCO E&C. These two corporations not only have strong monopolistic positions but KHNP combines the roles of constructor, owner and operator of nuclear power plants. In addition, KHNP exerts undue influence over KEPCO E&C. This strong triangular relationship between government and two monopolists persists today and forms the core of Korea's 'nuclear mafia'. Only radical structural and governance reform can address this fundamental weakness.
"Further compounding factors include: the corporate culture of KEPCO and its subsidiaries that emphasizes the need for conformity; the weak culture of accountability that arises in part from the absence of a strong law providing for punitive damages; and the general standard of personal and corporate ethics in Korea."
One indication of ongoing problems ‒ and efforts to resolve them ‒ was the awarding of 'prize money' to 14 whistleblowers in 2019 for reporting violations of nuclear or radiation safety laws to the Nuclear Safety and Security Committee.29
There were another six arrests related to nuclear corruption in 2018 ‒ an outcome that only scratched the surface of the problems according to a whistleblower.30
A recent example of violations of safety regulations occurred at the Hanbit-1 reactor on 10 May 2019. The reactor's thermal output exceeded safety limits but was kept running for nearly 12 hours when it should have been shut down manually at once.31 In addition, the control rods were operated by a person who does not hold a Reactor Operator's license.32
References:
1. Japan’s nuclear scandals and the Fukushima disaster, 2012, https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/FUKUSHIMA_BRIEFING_MARCH_2012.pdf
2. Richard Tanter, 2013, 'After Fukushima: A Survey of Corruption in the Global Nuclear Power Industry', Asian Perspectives 37:4, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/713962/pdf
3. Vladimir Slivyak, December 2014, 'Russian Nuclear Industry Overview'
http://earthlife.org.za/2014/12/pay-more-with-nuclear-report-4/
http://earthlife.org.za/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/russian-nuc-ind-overview.pdf
4. Reissa Su, 2 May 2015, 'Russia's Corruption In Nuclear Industry A US Concern And 'Threat' To National Security; FBI Still Investigates' http://www.ibtimes.com.au/russias-corruption-nuclear-industry-us-concern-threat-national-security-fbi-still-investigates
5. Dr V Prakash, 3 Nov 2014, 'Koodankulam: Corruption to Impending Disaster – The missing Link?', https://www.dianuke.org/koodankulam-corruption-to-impending-disaster-the-missing-link/
6. DiaNuke, 14 April 2013, 'The Zio-Podolsk Scandal and Koodankulam: Urgent and Must-Read Articles', https://www.dianuke.org/the-zio-podolsk-scandal-and-koodankulam-urgent-and-must-read-articles/
7. P.K. Sundaram, 26 April 2013, 'Scandal Engulfs India's Koodankulam Nuclear Project', https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/761/scandal-engulfs-india%E2%80%99s-koodankulam-nuclear-project-pk-sundaram
8. John Monk, 8 June 2020, 'Top SCANA ex-official to plead guilty to fraud conspiracy in nuclear plant failure', https://www.thestate.com/news/local/crime/article243356621.html
9. Abram Mashego, 2019, ''Nuclear deal' claims first scalp: Necsa's CEO Phumzile Tshelane', https://city-press.news24.com/News/nuclear-deal-claims-first-scalp-necsas-ceo-phumzile-tshelane-20190511
10. World Nuclear Association, 10 Dec 2018, 'South African government replaces Necsa board', http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/South-African-government-replaces-Necsa-board
11. Hartmut Winkler, 10 Nov 2017, 'South African president's last ditch effort to ram through a nuclear power deal', https://theconversation.com/south-african-presidents-last-ditch-effort-to-ram-through-a-nuclear-power-deal-87018
12. Nuclear Monitor #835, 6 Dec 2016, 'Twists and turns in South Africa's nuclear power program', https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/835/twists-and-turns-south-africas-nuclear-power-program
13. Matthew le Cordeur, 13 Oct 2016, 'State capture claims: For real? Unpacking #Zupta nuclear conspiracy theory', http://www.biznews.com/leadership/2016/10/13/state-capture-claims-for-real-unpacking-zupta-nuclear-conspiracy-theory/
14. Jan-Jan Joubert, 10 Aug 2017, 'Energy minister investigates R80m in irregularities in nuclear contract', https://www.timeslive.co.za/politics/2017-08-10-exclusive-energy-minister-investigates-r80-million-in-irregularities-in-nuclear-contract/
15. Neil Overy, 23 May 2017, 'How SA's nuclear plant build could fuel corruption', https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/opinion/2017-05-23-how-sas-nuclear-plant-build-could-fuel-corruption/
16. Nuclear Monitor #835, 6 Dec 2016, 'Brazil's nuclear power program undone by corruption', https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/835/brazils-nuclear-power-program-undone-corruption
17. L. Todd Wood, 30 March 2017, 'Ukrainian corruption casts nuclear pall over Europe',
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/30/ukrainian-corruption-casts-nuclear-pall-over-all-e/
18. IAEA, July 2015, Nuclear Technology Review 2015, www.iaea.org/About/Policy/GC/GC59/GC59InfDocuments/English/gc59inf-2_en.pdf
19. IAEA, 2019, 'Managing Counterfeit and Fraudulent Items in the Nuclear Industry', http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/Publications/PDF/P1817_web.pdf
20. KBS, 8 May 2020, 'S. Korea Unveils Energy Plan to Reduce Coal-powered, Nuclear Power Plants', http://world.kbs.co.kr/service/news_view.htm
21. Nuclear Monitor #878, 23 Sept 2019, 'South Korea's corrupt and dangerous nuclear industry', https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/878/south-koreas-corrupt-and-dangerous-nuclear-industry
22. Philip Andrews-Speed, May 2020, 'South Korea's nuclear power industry: recovering from scandal', Journal of World Energy Law & Business, https://academic.oup.com/jwelb/article/13/1/47/5837954
23. Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, www.kins.re.kr/en/ourwork/cfsi.jsp
24. Choi Kyong-ae, 12 Jan 2014, 'Hyundai Heavy vows to root out corruption', http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2014/01/602_149613.html
25. June Park and Ali Ahmad, 1 March 2018, 'Risky Business: South Korea's Secret Military Deal With UAE', 'The hidden military pact was meant to seal the UAE-ROK nuclear power plant deal', https://thediplomat.com/2018/03/risky-business-south-koreas-secret-military-deal-with-uae/
26. Lee Seung-jun, 10 Jan 2018, 'Secret military pact likely led to Blue House Chief of Staff's UAE visit', http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/827153.html
27. 4 Jan 2010, 'ROK FM YU ON ROK'S COMPREHENSIVE DEAL WITH UAE', https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10SEOUL2_a.html
28. Jeong Woo-sang and Kim Seung-bum, 10 Jan 2018, 'Korea and UAE Kiss and Make up', http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2018/01/10/2018011001376.html
29. Nuclear Safety and Security Committee, 4 Dec 2019, 'The NSSC Decided to Award Whistleblowers With 48.15 Million Won', https://www.nssc.go.kr/en/cms/FR_BBS_CON/BoardView.do?SITE_NO=3&BOARD_SEQ=1&BBS_SEQ=45886&MENU_ID=90&CONTENTS_NO=1
30. Max S. Kim, 22 April 2019, 'How greed and corruption blew up South Korea's nuclear industry', https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613325/how-greed-and-corruption-blew-up-south-koreas-nuclear-industry/
31. Choi Ha-yan, 21 May 2019, 'Nuclear reactor kept running for 12 hours after it should have been shut down', http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/894763.html
32. https://www.worldnuclearreport.org/The-World-Nuclear-Industry-Status-Report-2019-HTML.html
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South Korea's corrupt and dangerous nuclear industry
Jim Green, Nuclear Monitor #878, 23 Sept 2019, https://wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/878/south-koreas-corrupt-and-dangerous-nuclear-industry
Systemic corruption … cartel behavior … a secret military side-agreement to the UAE reactor contract … serious nuclear safety problems still evident in 2019 … plans to sell reactor technology to Saudi Arabia and thus to facilitate the Kingdom's weapons ambitions … what's not to like about South Korea's nuclear industry?
We covered South Korea's nuclear corruption scandals in Nuclear Monitor in May 20171 and this article updates and expands upon the previous one.
In May 2012, five engineers were charged with covering up a potentially dangerous power failure at South Korea's Kori-1 reactor which led to a rapid rise in the reactor core temperature.2 The accident occurred because of a failure to follow safety procedures. A manager decided to conceal the incident and to delete records, despite a legal obligation to notify the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission.
Around the same time, a much bigger and broader scandal emerged involving fake safety certifications for reactor parts, sub-standard reactor parts, cartel behavior and bribery.1-3 The corrupt practices stretched back to 2004 if not earlier.4
The Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety reported:5
· A total of 2,114 test reports were falsified: 247 test reports in relation to replaced parts for 23 reactors, an additional 944 falsifications in relation to 'items' for three recently commissioned reactors, and 923 falsifications in relation to 'items' for five reactors under construction.
· Results were 'unidentified' for an additional 3,408 test reports ‒ presumably it was impossible to assess whether or not the reports were falsified.
· Twenty-nine of the forgeries concerned 'seismic qualification', and the legitimacy of a further 43 seismic reports was 'unclear'.
· Over 7,500 reactor parts were replaced in the aftermath of the scandal.
Safety-related equipment was installed on the basis of falsified documentation. For example, equipment failed under Loss-Of-Coolant-Accident conditions during at least one concealed test, according to a whistleblower.6 Other examples include the substandard, uncertified cabling that was found to be defective when it triggered shutdowns at two nuclear plants.4
The situation in South Korea mirrors that in Japan prior to the Fukushima disaster ‒ i.e. systemic corruption ‒ except that Japan's corrupt nuclear establishment is known as the 'nuclear village' whereas South Korea's corrupt nuclear establishment is known as the 'nuclear mafia'.7
A 2014 parliamentary audit revealed that the temporary suspension of the operation of nuclear power plants after the scandal emerged caused the loss of 10 trillion won (US$8.4 billion).8 It also led to power shortages.
Nuclear power advocate Will Davis wrote this summary of the scandals in 2014:4
"Electing for brevity, suffice it to say that various schemes to advance the position of persons or companies in the South Korean nuclear industry have resulted in substandard parts being employed (particularly cable supplied by JS Cable, a company that is presently being liquidated), false quality assurance certificates being filed, and various collusion/bribery schemes among varied personnel at contractors and in the KHNP universe of subsidiaries ‒ with involvement reaching even to the highest (former) executives.
"While the true extent and nature of these corrupt activities began to be illuminated only at the end of 2011, in fact the activities stretched far prior; a recent article in the Korea Herald noted that JS Cable failed to obtain certification for nuclear parts for its product twice in 2004, and then somehow immediately made a sale of such equipment for a total of 5.5 billion won (US$5.06 million). That cabling was eventually found to be defective when it triggered shutdowns at two nuclear plants, in May 2013. Many corporate offices (including those of KHNP) were raided throughout the summer, and many arrests made ‒ arrests that included a former president of KHNP.
"Much more than cable from one company has been implicated; implicated parts (questionable parts, or questionable certifications, or both) were thought to possibly be in service at as many as 11 nuclear plants in South Korea."
The corruption also affected South Korea's reactor construction project in the UAE.9 Hyundai Heavy Industries employees offered bribes to KHNP officials in charge of the supply of parts for reactors to be exported to the UAE.
More fundamental changes needed
The New York Times reported in August 2013 that despite the government's pledge to ban parts suppliers found to have falsified documents from bidding again for 10 years, KHNP imposed only a six-month penalty for such suppliers.10 The New York Times continued:
"And nuclear opponents say that more fundamental changes are needed in the regulatory system, pointing out that one of the government's main regulating arms, the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, gets 60 percent of its annual budget from Korea Hydro."
Worse still, a 2014 parliamentary audit revealed that some officials fired from KEPCO E&C (Korea Electric Power Corporation Engineering and Construction) over the scandals were rehired.11
The scandal was still on the boil in 2014. Korea Times reported on 25 June 2014:7
"The government has discovered irregularities yet again that could threaten the safety of nuclear reactors. This time, the perpetrators are parts suppliers that presented fake quality certificates in the course of replacing antiquated parts used in nuclear power plants. Six state testing facilities were also found to have failed to conduct adequate tests before issuing certificates. A two-month audit of the six testing facilities by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy showed that 39 quality certificates presented by 24 companies were fabricated. ...
"Most disheartening in the latest revelation of irregularities is that the state-run certifiers failed to detect fabrications by skipping the required double-testing. ... Given the magnitude of corruption in the nuclear industry arising from its intrinsic nature of being closed, the first step toward safety should be to break the deep-seated food chain created by the so-called nuclear mafia, which will help enhance transparency ultimately. With the prosecution set to investigate the suppliers, the certifiers will face business suspension. But it's imperative to toughen penalties for them, considering that light punitive measures have stood behind the lingering corruption in the nuclear industry."
Opposition to South Korea's corrupt 'nuclear mafia' feeds into broader concerns about corruption. Japan Times reported in May 2017:12
"Opinion polls taken just before the election showed that the top concern for the country's voters was "deep-rooted corruption" and a desire to promote reform; second on that list was economic revival. If Moon is to succeed in those tasks, he must tackle the chaebol, the huge industrial conglomerates that dominate the South Korean economy and have outsized influence in its politics."
Japan's corrupt 'nuclear village' survived the political fallout from the Fukushima disaster and is back in charge.13 It would be naïve to imagine that the tepid response to South Korea's scandals has done away with the 'nuclear mafia' once and for all. There were another six arrests related to nuclear corruption in 2018 ‒ an outcome that only scratched the surface of the corruption according to a whistleblower.14
Rock-paper-scissors
An April 2019 article in MIT Technology Review provides further detail and an update on the corruption scandals:14
"On September 21, 2012, officials at KHNP had received an outside tip about illegal activity among the company's parts suppliers. By the time President Park had taken office, an internal probe had become a full-blown criminal investigation. Prosecutors discovered that thousands of counterfeit parts had made their way into nuclear reactors across the country, backed up with forged safety documents. KHNP insisted the reactors were still safe, but the question remained: was corner-cutting the real reason they were so cheap?
"Park Jong-woon, a former manager who worked on reactors at Kepco and KHNP until the early 2000s, believed so. He had seen that taking shortcuts was precisely how South Korea's headline reactor, the APR1400, had been built.
"After the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, most reactor builders had tacked on a slew of new safety features. KHNP followed suit but later realized that the astronomical cost of these features would make the APR1400 much too expensive to attract foreign clients. They eventually removed most of them," says Park, who now teaches nuclear engineering at Dongguk University. "Only about 10% to 20% of the original safety additions were kept."
"Most significant was the decision to abandon adding an extra wall in the reactor containment building ‒ a feature designed to increase protection against radiation in the event of an accident. "They packaged the APR1400 as 'new' and safer, but the so-called optimization was essentially a regression to older standards," says Park. "Because there were so few design changes compared to previous models, [KHNP] was able to build so many of them so quickly."
"Having shed most of the costly additional safety features, Kepco was able to dramatically undercut its competition in the UAE bid, a strategy that hadn't gone unnoticed. After losing Barakah to Kepco, Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon likened the Korean unit to a car without airbags and seat belts. When I told Park this, he snorted in agreement. "Objectively speaking, if it's twice as expensive, it's going to be about twice as safe," he said. At the time, however, Lauvergeon's comments were dismissed as sour words from a struggling rival.
"By the time it was completed in 2014, the KHNP inquiry had escalated into a far-reaching investigation of graft, collusion, and warranty forgery; in total, 68 people were sentenced and the courts dispensed a cumulative 253 years of jail time. Guilty parties included KHNP president Kim Jong-shin, a Kepco lifer, and President Lee Myung-bak's close aide Park Young-joon, whom Kim had bribed in exchange for "favorable treatment" from the government.
"Several faulty parts had also found their way into the UAE plants, angering Emirati officials. "It's still creating a problem to this day," Neilson-Sewell, the Canadian advisor to Barakah, told me. "They lost complete faith in the Korean supply chain."
"The scandals, however, were not over. Earlier this year, at a small bakery in Seoul, I met Kim Min-kyu. A slight 44-year-old man with earnest, youthful eyes, Kim used to be a senior sales manager at Hyosung Heavy Industries, a manufacturer of reactor parts. In 2010, he was put in charge of selling to KHNP and quickly discovered that double-dealing was as routine as paperwork.
""Suppliers who were supposed to be competing with one another colluded to decide who would win [KHNP bids]," Kim told me. "You'd have a group of white-haired executives from competing firms sitting across from each other, playing rock-paper-scissors to decide who would take certain contracts." Dummy bids would then be supported by fake documents, doctored to ensure that the designated loser would fail. On one occasion, he says, an irate KHNP procurement manager called him to point out an amateurish forgery in a fake bidding document ‒ and demanded he do it again, properly.
"Some of these practices constituted serious lapses in safety. In May 2014, Kim oversaw the delivery of 11 load center transformers bound for the Hanul Nuclear Power Plant in North Gyeongsang province, only to discover that their safety licenses hadn't been renewed. Load center transformers manage the flow of power to key emergency functions at reactors; any malfunction, Kim told me, would be "like a hurtling car suddenly stalling."
"Yet a secret agreement between Hyosung and competitors had designated it the winner, and the transformers were installed into two reactors, their integrity unquestioned. "I personally knew of around 300 cases where those transformers caught on fire. They're incredibly unstable," says Kim, his brow furrowed. "My hometown is actually just a few kilometers from those reactors, and an accident there could endanger my relatives who live nearby."
"In 2015, fearing a Fukushima-like accident, Kim decided to report the corruption through his company's internal whistleblowing system. The only result was that he was fired.
""How naïve I was," he says, flashing a rueful grin. He eventually went to the country's competition regulator, which referred the case to prosecutors. In 2018, he took his story to the media. A few months later, on the basis of tips from Kim, prosecutors charged six employees from Hyosung and co-conspirator LS Industrial Systems with collusion ‒ an outcome that Kim believes only scratches the surface of the corruption.
"More untruths soon came to light. In 2018, after years of government denial, former defense minister Kim Taeyoung admitted that the rumors about the military side agreement with the UAE were, in fact, true: he had overseen it himself in a desperate attempt to seal the Barakah deal. "There was low risk of a dangerous situation arising, and even if it did, we believed that our response could be flexible," he told South Korean media. "In the event of an actual conflict, I figured that we would ask for parliamentary ratification then." ...
"On principle, I don't trust anything that KHNP built," says Kim Min-kyu, the corruption whistleblower. More and more South Koreans have developed a general mistrust of what they refer to as "the nuclear mafia" ‒ the close-knit pro-nuclear complex spanning KHNP, academia, government, and monied interests. Meanwhile the government watchdog, the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, has been accused of revolving door appointments, back-scratching, and a disregard for the safety regulations it is meant to enforce."
The secret military side-agreement to the Korea/UAE reactor contract has led to debate as to whether the Lee government violated the constitution when it signed the agreement without the approval of the National Assembly.15 A confidential US briefing leaked by Wikileaks said the military side-agreement covered defense industry technology exchanges, cooperation on military training and support, and exchanges of high-ranking military officials.16
Kim Tae-young, who served as Defense Minister under the Lee administration from September 2009 to December 2010, said:15
"At the time, France had nearly clinched the UAE nuclear reactor deal. South Korea needed to show it was fully committed to the UAE. We signed an agreement for the South Korean military to intervene if the UAE runs into military trouble."
Inadequate nuclear safety standards
Clearly inadequate nuclear safety standards are still in evidence in 2019. A case in point was an incident at the Hanbit 1 reactor on 10 May 2019. The reactor's thermal output exceeded safety limits but was kept running for nearly 12 hours when it should have been shut down manually at once.17 The thermal output rose from 0% to 18% in one minute, far exceeding the 5% threshold that should have triggered a manual shutdown.
The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) ordered the suspension of operation of the nuclear power plant and dispatched a team of special judiciary police officers to carry out a special inspection.18 The NSSC said in a May 20 statement:18
"The NSSC confirmed that the KHNP did not immediately stop the reactor even though the thermal output of the reactor exceeded the limit during the Control Element Reactivity Measurement Test and that the control rod was operated by a person who does not have a Reactor Operator's license (RO). The NSSC said that negligence of the person having a Senior Reactor Operator's license (SRO) in supervising and directing the operation is suspected, and therefore there is a possibility of violating the Nuclear Safety Act."
The NSSC said on June 25:19
"According to the midterm results of the special investigation on the Hanbit Unit 1, which was released on June 24th, the event happened because the licensee (the Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power) did not abide by the Nuclear Safety Act, Technical Specifications and internal procedures".
The Hanbit-1 incident was one of three occasions in 2019 alone when a reactor was shut down soon after being reactivated. The Hankyoreh newspaper editorialized on 9 September 2019:20
"South Korean nuclear power plants that have reopened following government approval have faced a string of malfunctions, bringing their operations to a halt. These accidents raise worrying questions about the safety of nuclear energy. There's an urgent need for nuclear energy regulators to carry out thorough inspections and to prevent such accidents from reoccurring. ... Another question that must be asked is whether regulators have been too hasty in authorizing the reactors' reactivation."
References:
1. Nuclear Monitor #844, 25 May 2017, 'South Korea's 'nuclear mafia'', https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/844/south-koreas-nuclear-mafia
2. Nuclear Monitor #765, 1 Aug 2013, 'South Korea: Nuclear scandal widens', www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/765/nuclear-news
3. Nuclear Monitor #771, 2 Nov 2013, 'South Korea indicts 100 people over safety scandals', www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/771/south-korea-indicts-100-people-over-safety-scandals
4. Will Davis, 6 Feb 2014, 'South Korea nuclear power: Are the dark times over?', http://ansnuclearcafe.org/2014/02/06/south-korea-nuclear-power-are-the-dark-times-over/
5. Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety, www.kins.re.kr/en/ourwork/cfsi.jsp
6. Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al., 2016, World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016, www.worldnuclearreport.org or direct download: www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/20160713MSC-WNISR2016V2-HR.pdf
7. Korea Times, 25 June 2016, 'Fake certificates again', http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/opinon/2014/06/137_159789.html
8. Se Young Jang, 8 Oct 2015, 'The Repercussions of South Korea's Pro-Nuclear Energy Policy', http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/the-repercussions-of-south-koreas-pro-nuclear-energy-policy/
9. Choi Kyong-ae, 12 Jan 2014, 'Hyundai Heavy vows to root out corruption', http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2014/01/602_149613.html
10. Choe Sang-hun, 3 Aug 2013, 'Scandal in South Korea Over Nuclear Revelations', www.nytimes.com/2013/08/04/world/asia/scandal-in-south-korea-over-nuclear-revelations.html
11. Se Young Jang, 8 Oct 2015, 'The Repercussions of South Korea's Pro-Nuclear Energy Policy', http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/the-repercussions-of-south-koreas-pro-nuclear-energy-policy/
12. Japan Times, 10 May 2017, 'The pendulum swings in South Korea', www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2017/05/10/editorials/pendulum-swings-south-korea/
13. Nuclear Monitor #800, 19 March 2015, 'Japan's 'nuclear village' reasserting control', www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/800/japans-nuclear-village-reasserting-control
14. Max S. Kim, 22 April 2019, 'How greed and corruption blew up South Korea's nuclear industry', https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613325/how-greed-and-corruption-blew-up-south-koreas-nuclear-industry/
15. Lee Seung-jun, 10 Jan 2018, 'Secret military pact likely led to Blue House Chief of Staff's UAE visit', http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/827153.html
16. 4 Jan 2010, 'ROK FM YU ON ROK'S COMPREHENSIVE DEAL WITH UAE', https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/10SEOUL2_a.html
17. Choi Ha-yan, 21 May 2019, 'Nuclear reactor kept running for 12 hours after it should have been shut down', http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/894763.html
18. Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, 20 May 2019, 'The NSSC to Expand the Special Inspection on Manual Shutdown of Hanbit Unit 1', http://www.nssc.go.kr/nssc/en/c5/sub1.jsp?mode=view&article_no=45431&pager.offset=30&board_no=501
19. Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, 25 June 2019, 'Comments on the news article: Event at Hanbit Unit 1 was caused by a violation of the law and human error and irrelevant to the energy transition policy', http://www.nssc.go.kr/nssc/en/c5/sub1.jsp?mode=view&article_no=45520&pager.offset=20&board_no=501
20. Editorial ‒ Hankyoreh, 9 Sept 2019, 'Nuclear energy regulators need to be more vigilant in inspections than ever', http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_editorial/909073.html
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Is South Korea's nuclear industry a model for others to follow?
Jim Green, Nuclear Monitor #844, 25 May 2017, https://www.wiseinternational.org/nuclear-monitor/844/south-koreas-nuclear-industry-model-others-follow
As the nuclear power crisis has unfolded in recent months ‒ engulfing major nuclear companies and utilities in the US, Japan and France ‒ South Korea's nuclear industry has been held up as a model for others to follow. US nuclear lobbyist Michael Shellenberger, for example, explains 'why Korea won': "Korea is winning the global competition to build new nuclear plants against China and Russia despite being a fraction of the size, at just 50 million people, and energy-poor. It has done so through focus: standard design, standard construction of plants, standard operation and standard regulation."1
But South Korea's nuclear industry is scandal-plagued, it hasn't won any bids to build reactors overseas since 2009, and it is more than a stretch to describe it as "world class" as nuclear advocate Rod Adams would have you believe.2 Public and political support has been in freefall over the past five years because of the Fukushima disaster and a domestic nuclear corruption scandal (see the following article in this issue of the Nuclear Monitor). In the coming years, nuclear power's contribution to domestic electricity supply is likely to decline and there is little likelihood that an export industry will flourish. Moreover, with public support for the nuclear industry in freefall, the government has little hope of achieving its aim of securing a site for a high-level nuclear waste repository by 2028.
Korea Times noted on April 21 that every major candidate in South Korea's presidential election promised to stop building new nuclear reactors and to close down older ones.3 The winner of the May 9 presidential election, Moon Jae-in, who stood as the candidate of the Democratic Party of Korea, is a former human rights lawyer. World Nuclear News reported that Moon was one of seven presidential candidates who signed an agreement in March for a "common policy" to phase out nuclear power.4 During the election campaign, Moon said he would scrap plans for new reactors ‒ including Shin Kori units 5 and 6 ‒ while immediately closing the Wolsong-1 reactor.4 (In February 2017, the Seoul Administrative Court ordered the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission to cancel its decision to extend the lifespan of Wolsong-1 because legal procedures had not been followed in the decision-making process.) Moon also said he would block lifespan extensions for the older reactors at the Kori plant5 ‒ the four Kori reactors were grid-connected between 1977 and 1985.
Moon said during the election campaign that he believes South Korea will have to phase out all of its remaining nuclear power plants over the next 40 years or so.3 "I will make South Korea build no more nuclear reactors and close down aged nuclear reactors when their lifespan expire," Moon said. "Through this, South Korea can arrive at nuclear zero in 2060, and until then, we can develop alternative sources."2
Kim Jwa-kwan, head of Moon's energy policy team, said after the election that the target is to reduce reliance on nuclear power from the current 30% down to 18% by 2030.6 Kim also reaffirmed Moon's pre-election pledge to scrap the planned Shin Kori 5 and 6 reactors.
The 18% target is a huge drop from previous targets. It is less than one-third of the 2030 target of 59% announced by Korea Electric Power Company (Kepco) in 2011 and well short of the 2035 target of 29% announced by the former government in 2013.7
South Korea has 25 'operational' reactors, three under construction, and a further eight are planned according to the World Nuclear Association.8 In the aftermath of the presidential election, the reactors under construction are in doubt and the prospects for the eight planned reactors are dim. Nuclear power generation and capacity has steadily increased since the 1980s but nuclear's percentage of total electricity generation has fallen sharply, from 45% in 2005 to 30% today.9
President Moon Jae-in is also taking steps to reduce the reliance on coal and to boost renewables. For a month in June 2017, eight aging coal-fired power plants will stop operations. From next year, 10 old coal plants will be shut from March to June when electricity demand is relatively low, and the government plans to close them permanently during Moon's five-year presidency.10 The government plans to reduce reliance on coal for power generation from 43% to 25% by 2030 ‒ although an increase in gas-fired power production is also planned.6
Moon said during the election campaign that he would aim to raise the proportion of electricity generated from renewables to 20% by 2030. Plans will take shape at the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which releases its eighth annual report later this year.11
Declining public support
A 2005 IAEA-commissioned survey of 18 countries found that only in South Korea was there majority support for new reactors.12 But in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster and South Korea's nuclear corruption scandal, public support has tanked:
· In 2010, the proportion of South Koreans who considered nuclear power safe was 71% but that number halved to 35% in 2012 according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy. Reuters reported: "The ministry has been sharply criticized for its role as regulator and operator of the country's nuclear power plants, and one of its subsidiaries was accused of suppressing negative public opinion after the Fukushima disaster by not publishing polls."13
· Likewise, 64% of respondents to a May 2014 survey by the Korea Nuclear Energy Promotion Agency said they consider domestic reactors unsafe, up from 56% in March 2013.14
· A May 2011 survey found 61% opposition to nuclear power in South Korea and 68% opposition to new reactors.15
· A 2013 poll found that 65.6% percent of respondents were willing to pay higher electricity prices if it meant fewer nuclear power plants.16
· Korea Nuclear Energy Agency polling in 2015 found that only 30% favored more nuclear power, compared to 51% in 2009.17
· A 2015 poll in Yeongdeok, designated as a nuclear power plant site by the government in 2012, found that opposition to the proposed nuclear plant (62%) doubled support (31%).16,17
· A local referendum in October 2014 in Samcheok City, Gangwon Province, resulted in 85% of voters opposing the national government's plan for a new power reactor in the region.18
· All political candidates in the June 2014 elections in Busan, the closest major city to the Kori nuclear plant, called for the closure of unit 1, which has been plagued with safety issues.7
In February 2015, Nuclear Intelligence Weekly reported that South Korea's anti-nuclear movement has grown and diversified since the Fukushima disaster in 2011 and gained momentum because of the safety / corruption scandals: "Before the Fukushima disaster, the movement was largely limited to environmental groups and people living near nuclear facilities, who focused on opposing newbuild and radioactive waste disposal sites. Since then it has been joined by consumer groups and women’s associations that are concerned about radioactive contamination in food and other products; religious bodies ‒ mainly Catholic groups and Buddhists; and left-wing political organizations and labor unions that criticize the government’s expansionary nuclear policies."19
Concerns about Fukushima were reawakened in September 2016 when two big earthquakes hit the south-eastern part of South Korea, resulting in the temporary shutdown of four power reactors.20
South Korea's nuclear exports
South Korea's nuclear export industry ought to be the big winner from the deep troubles facing competitors such as Toshiba, Westinghouse and the French utilities EDF and Areva. Some hope that South Korea's Kepco will take a share in bankrupt Westinghouse. That would theoretically open up a range of export options for South Korea: it would give it a toe-hold in the US, Kepco might pursue the stalled plan for six AP1000 reactors in India, and so on.
Former World Nuclear Association executive Steve Kidd recently argued that the UK nuclear new-build program should have been put out to tender with the winner building 15 or so identical reactors.21 He misses the irony that if that happened a decade ago, the likely winner would have been now-bankrupt Westinghouse. If a similar UK tender was established now, Kidd argues, South Korea would be the likely winner.
In any case, while Kepco may be interested in buying into the NuGen project to build three reactors at Moorside in the UK, Kepco president Cho Hwan-eik was unequivocal in his comments in March 2017 about buying a stake in Westinghouse: "We have no plan to acquire Toshiba's stake [in Westinghouse] ... there is no role for us there".22 Moreover, discussions about Kepco buying into NuGen date from 2013 if not earlier, yet nothing has been agreed.23 And South Korean involvement in NuGen might be affected by the recent election of Moon Jae-in as president.
In 2010, South Korea's Ministry of Knowledge Economy (now the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy) stated that it aimed to achieve exports of 80 nuclear power reactors worth US$400 billion by 2030.24 Yet as the Financial Times noted in February 2017, that objective is now viewed as "wildly ambitious" and South Korea hasn't won a single bid to build reactors since 2009, when it secured the contract to build four reactors in the United Arab Emirates.25 South Korea has signed nuclear cooperation agreements with at least 27 countries24 but those agreements aren't leading to reactor supply contracts.
South Korea's nuclear cooperation agreement with South Africa was ruled to be illegal by a recent South African High Court ruling. South Korea hoped to export reactors to Vietnam, but Vietnam cancelled its nuclear program last year. South Korea's attempts to get into the Indian nuclear market have come to nothing.24,26 South Korea's plan to build 'SMART' small reactors in Saudi Arabia has an air of unreality about it since no other country ‒ including South Korea itself ‒ has built such a reactor (and it's not hard to imagine the new political leadership in South Korea revisiting the wisdom of selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia given the Kingdom's open interest in developing nuclear weapons). The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has been slowly assessing South Korea's APR1400 reactor design but even if that review is completed and successful, there is no prospect of new reactors in the US for the foreseeable future. And on it goes ... South Korea has been in discussions with Indonesia and Malaysia but neither country is likely to pursue nuclear power in the foreseeable future.
A detailed 2015 Brookings Institution paper concluded: "Some of the countries that South Korea is targeting for its nuclear exports are in the early stages of planning nuclear power programs, whereas others are more advanced. Given the poor financial condition of some of these countries and their lack of any kind of nuclear infrastructure, it is far from certain that the ambitious nuclear power programs of many of these countries will be realized."24
The recent presidential election won't help South Korea's nuclear export industry. Ongoing domestic experience building reactors is the strongest foundation for an export industry yet plans for new reactors in South Korea will likely be shelved. Nuclear lobbyist Rod Adams said Moon Jae-in "might single-handedly reverse the progress that the Korean Electric Power Company (KEPCO) has achieved in learning how to build large nuclear plants. If the country stops building reactors at home, it will have substantially more difficulty maintaining its ability to successfully export the technology."2 Adams further noted that exporting nuclear power plants "requires substantial up-front financial support from the vendor and its home government"27 but that financial support is now in jeopardy in the wake of the election result.
South Korea's APR1400 reactor design
South Korea's APR1400 reactor design ‒ its version of long-established pressurized water reactor technology ‒ might be a good fit in the context of the deep troubles facing Toshiba, Westinghouse and the French nuclear utilities. Those troubles demonstrate the need to cut nuclear costs and if that means sacrificing safety, so be it. Steve Thomas noted in a 2014 paper that Korean authorities acknowledge that the APR1400 would not meet US or European requirements, particularly on aircraft crash protection and, for Europe, a core-catcher.28
Anne Lauvergeon, the CEO of Areva when the French utility lost its bid to build reactors in the UAE, was scathing about Korea's winning APR1400 design. Nucleonics Week reported: "She mentioned in particular that EPR's containment was designed to withstand the crash of a large jet aircraft and had a provision to prevent molten corium from penetrating the reactor basemat if the core melted through the reactor vessel. She likened the Korean reactor ‒ which she said had neither such feature ‒ to 'a car without airbags and safety belts.'"29
There is hardly any operating experience with APR1400 reactors. Only one is operating ‒ Shin Kori #3 in South Korea ‒ and that reactor only began commercial operation in December 2016. Three other APR1400 reactors are under construction in South Korea, and four in the UAE.30
The safety and forgery scandal that first emerged in 2012 has delayed the APR1400 projects in South Korea. Rod Adams wrote in Forbes: "That reactor [Shin Kori #3], the world's first APR1400 was initially scheduled to begin operating in 2013 and to be in commercial service by mid to late 2014. That plan was perturbed when inspectors in Korea found substandard control and safety system cabling installed in a number of Korean nuclear plants. The investigation eventually revealed that Shin Kori unit 3 had out-of-specification cables installed. The complete cycle of discovery, corrective action determination and cable replacement delayed the commercial operation of Shin Kori unit 3 by more than two years."31
And the delays in South Korea have delayed completion of the APR1400 reactors in the UAE.32
The completion of four APR1000 reactors on-time and on-budget in the UAE is held up by nuclear lobbyists to be one of the industry's best good-news stories. But the reactors may not be completed on time and precious little credible information is available on the cost of the reactors and where the funding is coming from. The 2016 World Nuclear Industry Status Report pulled together available information:7
"At the time of the contract signing in December 2009, with Korean Electric Power Corp., the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp (ENEC), said that “the contract for the construction, commissioning and fuel loads for four units equaled approximately US$20 billion, with a high percentage of the contract being offered under a fixed-price arrangement". The original financing plan for the project was thought to include US$10 billion from the Export Import Bank of Korea, US$2 billion from the Ex-Im Bank of the U.S., US$6 billion from the government of Abu Dhabi, and US$2 billion from commercial banks. However, it is unclear what other financing sources have been used for the project, and it is reported that the cost of the project has risen significantly, with the total cost of the plant including infrastructure and finance now expected to be about US$32 billion, with others putting the cost of the contracts at US$40 billion, including fuel management and operation, although little independent information is available."
Security and proliferation
Jungmin Kang and Frank von Hippel, writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on 15 May 2017, argue that the new political leadership in South Korea should cancel an R&D project into pyroprocessing and fast reactors:33
"One of the first orders of business for South Korea’s new political leadership should be the review of a plan ‒ developed and promoted relentlessly by the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) ‒ to reprocess South Korea’s spent nuclear fuel to recover its plutonium and other transuranic elements for fueling sodium-cooled fast-neutron reactors. KAERI’s scheme would saddle the country with a hugely costly, dangerous, and futile nuclear enterprise. ...
"KAERI and the ministry that funds it have been promoting pyroprocessing as a technology that could reduce the volume of high-level radioactive waste requiring deep disposal by a factor of up to 20, the area required for geologic disposal by a factor of up to 100, and the toxicity of the radioactive waste by up to a factor of 1,000, relative to spent fuel. All these claims are false. Pyroprocessing is not a dream technology that can solve South Korea’s spent-fuel problem. It is a costly detour to nowhere."
If South Korea abandoned its reprocessing and fast reactors plans, that might make it somewhat easier to convince Japan and China to abandon their reprocessing plans and to stop the vicious cycle of proliferation of dual-use technologies in north-east Asia.34
Another task for the new political leadership is to address the vulnerability of nuclear plants to military strikes, all the more important in the context of heightened tensions with North Korea. Yonhap News reported on 16 May 2017 that a report by KHNP noted that South Korea's power reactors have not been designed to deal with military attacks ‒ the outer protective walls were not designed to withstand a missile strike or other forms of concerted attacks.35
Kim Jong-hoon, a parliamentarian representing the conservative Liberty Korea Party, said that Seoul was several years behind the US in coming up with safety measures to deal with military and terrorist attacks. "The fact that the country has not taken action in the past is a serious lapse, especially with North Korea's evolving missile threats," Kim said.35
References:
1. Michael Shellenberger, 13 Feb 2017, 'Why its Big Bet on Westinghouse Nuclear is Bankrupting Toshiba', www.environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/2/13/why-its-big-bet-on-westinghouse-nuclear-bankrupted-toshiba
2. Rod Adams, 12 April 2017, 'Republic Of Korea May Decide To Reign In Its World Class Nuclear Industry', www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2017/04/12/republic-of-korea-may-decide-to-reign-in-its-world-class-nuclear-industry/
3. Jung Min-ho, 21 April 2017, 'Future of nuclear energy bleak in Korea', www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/nation/2017/04/371_228046.html
4. World Nuclear News, 10 May 2017, http://mailchi.mp/world-nuclear-news/wnn-daily-uranium-energy-acquires-licensed-reno-creek-project?e=ae5ca458a0
5. World Nuclear News, 11 April 2017, http://us1.campaign-archive1.com/?u=140c559a3b34d23ff7c6b48b9&id=79176a2ae7&e=ae5ca458a0
6. Jane Chung / Reuters, 18 May 2017, 'S.Korea coal, nuclear power targeted for cuts by presidential candidates', http://in.reuters.com/article/southkorea-election-energy-idINL3N1HI02P
7. Mycle Schneider, Antony Froggatt et al., 2016, World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2016, www.worldnuclearreport.org or direct download: www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/20160713MSC-WNISR2016V2-HR.pdf
8. www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-o-s/south-korea.aspx
9. IAEA, www.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/CountryDetails.aspx?current=KR
10. Korea Times, 16 May 2017, 'Shutdown of coal plants', www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/opinion/2017/05/202_229472.html
11. Shim Woo-hyun, 10 May 2017, 'Moon Jae-in to push for renewable energy policies', www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20170510000794
12. Globescan, 2005, ‘Global Public Opinion on Nuclear Issues and the IAEA: Final report from 18 countries’, prepared for the IAEA, p.19, http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2015/ph241/llanos1/docs/globescan.pdf
13. Reuters, 7 Jan 2013, 'South Korea to expand nuclear energy despite growing safety fears', www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/08/us-nuclear-korea-idUSBRE90704D20130108
14. Heesu Lee, 15 Jan 2015, 'Fukushima Meltdowns Pervade S. Korea Debate on Reactor Life', www.bloomberg.com/news/2015-01-14/fukushima-meltdowns-pervade-korea-debate-on-longer-reactor-life.html
15. IPSOS, 2011, 'Global Citizen Reaction to the Fukushima Nuclear Plant Disaster', http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2017/ph241/geng1/docs/ipsos-jun11.pdf
16. Se Young Jang, 8 Oct 2015, 'The Repercussions of South Korea’s Pro-Nuclear Energy Policy', http://thediplomat.com/2015/10/the-repercussions-of-south-koreas-pro-nuclear-energy-policy/
17. Toby Dalton and Minkyeong Cha, 23 Feb 2016, 'South Korea’s Nuclear Energy Future', http://carnegieendowment.org/2016/02/23/south-korea-s-nuclear-energy-future/iulb
18. Takano Satoshi, Jan./Feb. 2015, 'Samcheok, South Korea, holds “genuine” local referendum on new NPP', Nuke Info Tokyo, No. 164, www.cnic.jp/english/newsletter/nit164/nit164articles/02_samcheok.html
19. Nuclear Intelligence Weekly, 27 Feb 2015, 'South Korea: Anti-Nuclear Movement Grows and Widens', Vol. IX, No. 9, www.energyintel.com
20. Matthew Bell, 11 May 2017, 'South Korean Catholics take the lead in protesting against nuclear power', www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-11/south-korean-catholics-take-lead-protesting-against-nuclear-power
21. Steve Kidd, 9 May 2017, 'The UK nuclear programme – does it make any sense?', www.neimagazine.com/opinion/opinionthe-uk-nuclear-programme-does-it-make-any-sense-5809043/
22. Song Jung-a in, 22 March 2017, 'Kepco rules out buying Westinghouse stake', www.ft.com/content/cd70d392-0ec8-11e7-b030-768954394623
23. Guy Chazan, 20 Nov 2013, 'Scandal-hit Korean group makes UK nuclear bid', www.ft.com/content/2c9c490e-510e-11e3-b499-00144feabdc0
24. Robert Einhorn, Fred F. McGoldrick, James L. Tyson, and Duyeon Kim, 16 Jan 2015, 'ROK-U.S. Civil Nuclear and Nonproliferation Collaboration in Third Countries', https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/ROK-US-Civil-Nuclear-and-Nonproliferation-Collaboration-in-Third-Countries.pdf
25. Kana Inagaki, Leo Lewis and Ed Crooks, 15 Feb 2017, 'Downfall of Toshiba, a nuclear industry titan', www.ft.com/content/416a2c9c-f2d3-11e6-8758-6876151821a6
26. Anirban Bhaumik, 12 Jan 2014, 'New Delhi wary of nuclear cooperation with Seoul', www.deccanherald.com/content/380183/delhi-wary-nuclear-cooperation-seoul.html
27. Stephen Stapczynski, 16 May 2017, 'New South Korean President Seen Hindering Nuclear Ambitions', www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-15/new-south-korean-president-seen-hindering-atomic-export-ambition
28. Steve Thomas, July 2014, 'Nuclear technology options for South Africa', http://earthlife.org.za/www/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/nuclear-cost_report1.pdf
29. Nucleonics Week, 22 April 2010, ‘No core catcher, double containment for UAE reactors, South Koreans say’, https://online.platts.com/PPS/P=m&e=1272486727325.13004128321662479/NW_20100422.xml?artnum=C2010w04211EqR62MT1W03_4
30. 22 May 2017, 'APR-1400', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/APR-1400
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