By Cho Jin-seo
Staff Reporter
The government is striving to promote the nation's nuclear power technologies to other nations and forge partnership deals for developing future technologies.
The Ministry of Science and Technology and its head Kim Woo-sik forged a couple of partnership agreements this week with the United States and China. Kim also gave a keynote speech at the 51st general conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Monday in Vienna.
South Korea is one of a few nations that has continued building nuclear power plants even though the Chernobyl disaster in Russia in 1986 made the technology look unattractive in many Western countries. It is again stealing the limelight in developing and developed nations alike because of soaring oil prices and concerns about green house gas emission from coal and gas power plants.
The ministry said Friday that South Korea and China have agreed to expand cooperation in the development of atomic energy and the building of nuclear reactors.
Minister Kim Woo-sik and Sun Qin, head of the China Atomic Energy Authority, met in Vienna and agreed that the two nations will work together to develop high-temperature gas reactors.
``To help Minister Kim's nuclear power diplomacy bear fruit, the ministry will promote various international partnership programs in nuclear safety, radioactive ray fusion and future technology development,'' the ministry said in a release. ``We will support the nation to stand in the middle of the worldwide nuclear industry.''
Nuclear power was once a bedeviled technology due to potential dangers related to it. There was a reactor meltdown at Three Mile Island in the United States in 1979 and at Chernobyl in the Soviet Union in 1986. The latter accident killed 56 people instantly and is believed to be the cause of 4,000 additional deaths by cancer.
South Korea nevertheless remained as a strong supporter of nuclear generation, along with a few other nations such as France and Japan. There are 19 operational reactors that generate just under 40 percent of the country's total electricity output.
Government officials have said they want to play a role in building the 31 new nuclear plants that China plans to build by 2020 to meet its soaring power demand. China currently has four nuclear plants in operation.
The two nations already have a close partnership in the field. In April, Doosan Heavy Industries and Construction won a nuclear plant facility deal worth $350 million (324 billion won) in China. The plant is to be built by Westinghouse of the United States.
Doosan is also trying to sell reactors of its own design to Vietnam and Indonesia in cooperation with the Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and the Science Ministry.