Jury votes to resume construction of Shin-Kori reactors

By Park Si-soo

A jury of 471 citizens has voted for the resumption of construction on the Shin-Kori 5 and 6 reactors, ending months of debate over whether to scrap or continue work on the reactors being built near the southeastern city of Ulsan.

Of the jury, 59.5 percent voted for the resumption while 40.5 percent supported the suspension, Kim Ji-young, chief of a state commission handling the debate, said at a press conference Friday.

The gap was larger than expected, well exceeding the survey's margin of error of 3.5 percentage points, he said.

“In all age brackets, the proportion of those on the resumption side grew as more surveys were conducted,” Kim said in a televised announcement. “The commission recommends to the government the policy of resuming the construction of Shin Kori No. 5 and No. 6.”

President Moon Jae-in, who promised to phase out nuclear reactors during his election campaign, established the commission to collect public opinion on the controversial issue.

The Moon government said it will accept the jury’s decision.

The reactors were about 30 percent complete before construction was suspended in July. About 1.6 trillion won ($1.4 billion) had been spent on the project.

The committee also found that 53.2 percent of its jurors support scaling back nuclear power generation while 35.5 percent supported maintaining the current situation. Only 9.7 percent called for an expansion, Kim said.

“Therefore, the commission recommends that the government make energy policy decisions in a direction of scaling down nuclear power generation,” Kim said.