Korea Nuclear Energy Agency (KNEA) Chairman & CEO Kim Ho-sung stressed the need for a decarbonization environment in the wake of the Post 2020 Climate Change regime.
“The year 2016 is the first year of a watershed moment in the Korean energy industry. It is reason the nation will have to brace for great changes in energy production and consumption systems as the Post 2020 Climate Change Regime has been established at the COP21 Conference in Paris last year,“ he said.
He said in an article he contributed to the January issue of the KNEA Journal, “Our nation will be obliged to cut 2030 greenhouse gas emissions by 37 percent from business-as-usual (BAU) levels, so to this end, policies of creating a decarbonization environment are badly need to be established first of all.”
Korea will have to restructure industries to conform to a new energy environment and establish a decarbonization culture in such areas as transportation and housing, he said. A report on energy policy priorities released by the World Energy Congress (WEC) last year showed that Korea ranked 2nd an A grade in terms of energy equity, but the nation placed 94th a C grade in terms of environmental sustainability and 101th a D in terms of energy security. It means that Korea’s dependence on fossil fuels is still high, and the nation turns to imports for 96 percent of its energy needs, Chairman Kim said.
The difficult reality of the Korean energy sector is that public opinion is divided over nuclear power. Since the 1970s, supplying electricity via nuclear power has served as a driving force behind what Korea is and an axis of energy security. Controversies over nuclear energy have no end in sight. The outcomes of a pubic survey, conducted by the KNEA in December 2015 showed that 85.1 percent of Korean people acknowledged the need for nuclear power, but only 41 percent of the respondents were affirmative about nuclear safety. This indicates that many people acknowledge the need for nuclear power given the reality of the nation’s energy resources, but they do not fully approve due to misgivings over the use of nuclear power.
The general public’s mixed views over nuclear power pose as a daunting task to overcome when it comes to the implementation of safe management of spent nuclear fuel. The nation’s 24 nuclear power units in operation now produce some 750 tons of spent nuclear fuel, threatening to run out of temporary storage capacity.
Starting with the storage facility of Wolsong Nuclear Complex, which is to expire in 2019, Habit, Hanul, and Kori nuclear power units are expected to be saturated by 2024, 2026 and 2028, respectively. The expansion of new storage facilities and creation permanent treatment facilities emerge as urgent tasks.
KNEA Chairman Kim said most of the social conflicts related to nuclear power stem from limited information communication and misunderstanding caused by false information and exaggeration.
If communication based on objective information is vitalized and deliberation is made together, it would lead to consensus, he noted. It will take time to reach an agreement and ups and downs are to be expected. There will be temptations to patch up conflicts in a clumsily and hurriedly manner, but we’ve learned a lesson through experiences that right decisions cannot be made, and they cannot be implemented without full acceptance of public opinions.
It takes on significance as this year marks the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Korea-U.S. agreement on non-military use of nuclear power. The KNEA has been devoting itself to putting the right and objective policies on nuclear power on the right track under the catchphrases, “field experience, policy empathy and social consensus.”
“We’ll make our utmost efforts to secure communication and consensus to contribute and draw up a blueprint of the future nuclear energy,” he said. Kim added that the KNEA will devote itself to establishing a new decarbonization energy culture that can contribute to enhancing public confidence over nuclear power through objective information and fair communication and reducing social conflicts.
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