South Korean minister defends nuclear waste site plan

Seoul, Dec 17, 2004 -- BBC Monitoring

The South Korean government is aiming to build a low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste site by 2008, Minister of Commerce, Industry and Energy Lee Hee-beom said Friday [17 December]. Speaking to reporters following a meeting of the Atomic Energy Commission, Lee said Seoul will adopt a two-step policy of first selecting a storage area for the country's low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste before deciding how and where to store high-level waste.

"In regards to the first, a plan should be forthcoming in late January, while the latter may have to go through a lengthy process of building public support and detailed dialogue with those who oppose South Korea's nuclear energy policy," said the minister. He said the government was not in a hurry to pick such a site. Low-and intermediate-level radioactive waste includes radioactive gloves, protective clothing, filters and hospital X-ray by-products, while highly radioactive waste includes spent nuclear fuel. The former, the government said, has a radioactivity of under 0.01 milli-Sivert (mSv), one-tenth the amount of radioactivity a person is exposed to when having an X-ray. A person is usually exposed to 2.4 mSv annually from radiation in the natural environment. The ministry argues present low-level waste sites will reach maximum capacity in 2008, while it will be 2016 before a new high-level waste site will be needed. "There should be little health and safety concerns in regards to the low-level site, while high-level sites to store spent fuel will only be decided after there has been considerable social consensus," the minister said. Wary of opposition from various environmental groups that claim low-level sites will be used later on to store high-level wastes, Lee stressed that low-and intermediate-level radioactive repositories will not be used to store highly radioactive by-products, he said. He called on the environment groups opposing the plan to provide viable alternatives to the country's nuclear waste proposal. Lee pointed out that the supply of safe and cheap electricity was a government responsibility, and that considerations like high oil prices and climate change treaties that limit the burning of fossil fuel had to be considered. South Korea relies on 19 nuclear reactors to provide 40 per cent of its electricity needs. It is planning to build eight more. The minister then said that in the case of the low-level waste site, the government was considering picking a handful of sites that were geological safe before taking local polls and a referendum on the matter, instead of asking regional governments to bid to host the site. The latter method was attempted in the selection of Puan for the nuclear waste dump that was effectively scrapped because of local opposition. Related to this, Cho Seok, the director-general of the Commerce and Energy Ministry's Nuclear Power Industry Bureau, said that for low-level sites the government may act in an one-sided manner and pick a site if people there do not object, regardless of the objection of civic groups.

Source: Yonhap news agency, Seoul, in English 0131 gmt 17 Dec 04

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