ed Going nuclear anyway

What lessons has Seoul learned from Fukushima?

The horrible nuclear disaster that hit eastern Japan this spring has divided major countries’ energy policies into before and after Fukushima. Not Korea, which became the first country in the world Friday to announce candidate sites for additional atomic power plants since March.

Seoul’s decision has problems both in its direction and the procedure.

Government officials and state-sponsored scientists say nuclear is the only economically viable alternative to fossil fuels, citing the nation’s rapidly increasing energy demand and production costs of major energy sources. They may be right in the short run ― provided the major energy consumers ― industry, commerce and households ― maintain their wasteful spending patterns.

Privately scientists and environmentalists say, however, nuclear power is neither economical when the heavy costs for dismantling of worn-out plants and disposing of waste fuel is considered, nor safe as seen in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Their production cost would then be close to coal plants, but damage from possible accidents can’t be compared.

Tokyo says it would take 330 trillion won over 10 years to completely recover from the damage from Fukushima, an amount that could cripple the Korean economy. Officials here virtually rule out chances of an earthquake and tsunami hitting Korea. There are always possibilities of disasters caused by human elements, including corruption, which recently stopped the operation of two plants recently. When it comes to nuclear plants, even 99.9 percent of safety guarantee is not sufficient.

Experts say Korea can save up to 30 percent of energy consumption if all consumers cooperate, like in Japan, enabling the nation to meet demand without additional atomic plants and earning time for gradually shifting to safer and cleaner renewable energy.

All this indicates the government should have redrawn its energy blueprint based on new demand-supply roadmap, come up with correct, and most conservative, plans for new power stations, and come up with proper allocation by major sources.

It didn’t. Instead, the government announced the site selection based on its 2008 plan, changing not a figure of it and just waiting half a year until public fear somewhat subdued.

More pitiable is less than 50 percent of residents in Samcheok, Gangwon Province support the construction plan, threatening to recall their mayor and councilors for their one-sided decision. Even if local residents approve it, building nuclear plants should be a matter of national concern.

Korean officials learned nothing from the neighboring country’s misfortune. It is the responsibility of the voters then to correct their mistakes and start from the ground up.