S. Korea is now a leader in the building and export of Gen III+ Reactors. Up there with Areva's EPR and Westinghouse's AP1000, Korea is building and exporting it's APR1400.
Generally the country and the industry so closely linked to it is getting good reviews in it's history of nuclear safety regulation and the operating of its plants. In fact, so 'good' that as a nation, S. Korea has the highest capacity of running nuclear plants, over the U.S.'s 90%.
Here are the general stats:
--> Today 23 reactors provide over 31% of South Korea's electricity from 20.7 GWe of plant. The aim reaffirmed in mid 2011 is to provide 59% of electricity from 40 units by 2030.
--> Nuclear energy remains a strategic priority for South Korea, and capacity is planned to increase by 56% to 27.3 GWe by 2020, and then to 43 GWe by 2030.
This is an ambitious goal and many among those that want to attack climate change and, provide for a planet with prosperity is the norm, and not poverty and hunger, cheer this on. It's worth pointing out that Korea is building 4 AP1400s in the U.A.E. and is bidding on a set in Turkey and at least 2 in Vietnam. But all is not right in S. Korea's safety regime.
The situation here in Korea is – at the very least – uncomfortable for nuclear energy. There was an issue at Kori 1 more than a month ago – a 12 minute station blackout, where several layers of backup power failed. That was bad enough. But the plant didn’t report the blackout to the regulator for about 30 days … and even then the report came after the news had been leaked. This is a huge embarrassment for the Korean nuclear industry. Certain executives from the operator were “uninvited” to the conference, and many events have been scaled back.
Korei 1 is an old 576 MW PWR built by Westinghouse which went on line in 1978. It is due to close in 2017.
The issue is here is not this older Gen II reactor, per se. In fact they are now 2 generations "a head" of this, the oldest operating reactor in South Korea, with the first APR1400 due online in 2013 and 9 more reactors under construction or approved and planned for in the pipeline.
The issue the safety regime established in S. Korea. The following from the World Nuclear Association gives the best overall detailed picture of the regime:
The Atomic Energy Commission is the highest decision-making body for nuclear energy policy and is chaired by the Prime Minister. It was set up under the Atomic Energy Act.
The high-level Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) chaired by the Minister of Education, Science & Technology is responsible for nuclear safety regulation. It is independent of the AEC and was set up by amendment of the Atomic Energy Act in 1996. The regulatory framework is largely modelled on the US NRC.
The Ministry of Education, Science & Technology (MEST) has overall responsibility for nuclear R&D, nuclear safety and nuclear safeguards.
The Korean Institute of Nuclear Safety (KINS), an expert safety regulator, was formerly under MEST, though the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), responsible for R&D, comes under the Korea Research Council of Public Science & Technology (KORP).
The government launched a new Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) in October 2011. It is the new independent regulator, reporting to the president, and its chairman has ministerial rank. KINS becomes a technical support organisation under it, while MEST simply promotes nuclear power. The NSSC's scope covers licensing, inspection, enforcement, incident response and emergency response, non-proliferation and safeguards, export/import control and physical protection.
The Technology Centre for Nuclear Control, responsible for nuclear material accounting and the international safeguards regime, was transferred from KAERI to KINS at the end of 2004 and was then replaced by the National Nuclear Management and Control Agency (NNCA). In June 2006 this was replaced by the Korean Institute of Nuclear Non-proliferation and Control (KINAC), with greater independence, under MEST. However this role has now apparently been transferred to NSSC.
The Ministry of Knowledge Economy (MKE) is responsible for energy policy, for the construction and operation of nuclear power plants, nuclear fuel supply and radioactive waste management. KEPCO, KHNP, KNFC, NETEC and heavy engineering operations come under MKE, and KEPCO seems to have a controlling role re the others. The Korea Nuclear Energy Foundation (KNEF) is a public information body also under MKE.
After the Fukushima accident there was immediate assessment of each site followed by a MEST special safety review of all plants (with special attention to Kori-1) and then IAEA Integrated Regulatory Review Service check of the whole South Korean situation. A number of measures were initiated: the coastal barrier at Kori 1 was raised to 10m, watertight doors were fitted to emergency diesel generator buildings, battery power supplies were secured form possibility of flooding, a vehicle with portable diesel generator was situated at each site, pumps were waterproofed, passive hydrogen removal systems not dependent on electricity were installed, exhaust and decompression equipment was improved, and the seismic performance of automatic shutdown and cooling systems was improved. All this represents an investment of about US$ 1 billion over five years.
Please note, unexplained in the WNA take out on this, that "special attention" is being paid to the Kori-1 site. They raised the sea wall to 10 meters and made a tremendous effort, it appears to harden the entire complex. In many ways this is an example of what all plants on a coast need to do, especially Japan.
But their appears to be a real enforcement problem if the incident that took place months ago about the failure of the plant operations department to report a station black out. Black outs are bad enough but they can be addressed, usually quite easily by investigating the cause and addressing it via engineering and operating procedures. But its the failure to report that is at issue here, and their failure to report in a timely manner AFTER the incident was outed in the news that is a problem and, needs to be addressed by a thorough review of their safety culture and reporting procedures.