Safety Risk
Korea’s national budget for disaster preparedness has been decreased to a large extent in spite of the increasing importance of nuclear accident prevention.
“The amount of the budget increased from 2.02 billion won [US$1.92 million] to 9.89 billion won [US$9.39 million] between 2011 and 2012, but dropped to 2.76 billion won [US$2.62 million] in 2013, and 1.75 billion won [US$1.66 million] for the first half of this year,” said ruling Saenuri Party lawmaker Lee Jung-hyun, who is a member of the Trade, Industry and Energy Committee of the National Assembly, during the parliamentary inspection of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power on Oct. 17. He added that equipment such as radiation meters were purchased in quantity immediately after the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, but disaster prevention has been laid aside recently.
Nevertheless, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power has spent approximately 10 billion won each year for publicity purposes, including 11.8 billion won (US$11.2 million) in 2012 alone. “It is important and necessary to tell the people about the safety of nuclear power generation, but efforts for accident prevention cannot be neglected, either,” the lawmaker pointed out, continuing, “More investment has to be made in the establishment of disaster prevention systems and education and training to that end.”
In the meantime, there have been 684 accidents and failures in the 23 atomic power stations currently in operation in Korea. Out of those, 130 were in the 37-year-old Gori Unit 1, which had its service life extended by 10 years in 2007.
It was followed by Gori Unit 2 (63 cases), Gori Unit 3 (52 cases), and Wolseong Unit 1 (52 cases). Nuclear power plants in Korea were halted for 737.2 days combined in 2011, but the number increased to 1,412.6 days in the following year and then to 1,948.6 days in 2013.