We have now covered the stunning advance of nuclear energy in two countries: Sweden and China. We now turn out attention to Korea.
Korean news these days focuses on the decayed Red Monarchy in the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. Out attention is south of the 39th Parallel in the Republic of Korea, or "South Korea" as it is popularly known and, for purposes of this diary entry, simply "Korea".
Korea has an outstanding record in nuclear energy. In many ways it parallels it's northern neighbor, China, but it is actually far more advanced (which why Korea and China work together). The difference between the two countries is one of evolution. Korea started their move away from dangerous fossil fuel in the 1960s and planned, then achieved, the goal of getting 40% of their generation from nuclear energy.
A point on "capacity". The "capacity", that is the total "name plate" generation potential of nuclear is actually only 30% of the whole. Why the difference? The rest of Korea's generation capacity comes from oil, coal, natural gas (imported as LNG) some hydro. But that "70%" of non-nuclear has 'real' capacities a lot lower than their name plate capacity. This is especially true of coal and oil, both of which usually run between 50% and 70% of capacity on average. In other words, they break down and have to be fixed before resuming generation. Since nuclear generation usually runs close to 100% capacity, "what you see (name plate capacity) is what you get (actual generation)".
The Korean gov't is now moving toward a full 60% of capacity, which could put them close to 75% of real generation. They have now 5 1 GW-plus reactors under construction and 3 more planned to start over the next 5 years. These 3 including the last one that was started in the fall of last year, is the APR-1400, a 1350 MW ingeniously built, partially Korean designed nuclear power plant based on a Generation III+ reactor originally conceived by, but never implement by, Westinghouse on a NRC approved design known as "System 80+".
Here is what the World Nuclear Organization says about it:
The APR-1400 was originally known as the Korean Next-Generation Reactor when work started on the project in 1992. The basic design was completed in 1999. It offers enhanced safety with seismic design to withstand 0.3g ground acceleration, and has a 60-year design life.
The other Korean nuclear "product" that will be also marketed in competition with the US, Russia, China and France around Asia is the OPR-1000 , a 1000 MWs/1 GW reactors of Korean design and manufacture. There are already 6 of these online in Korea now and 4 more under construction.
Secondly, the other plants under construction are based on the Canadian designed CANDU reactor system. These are Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors that currently power the Canadian grid. The Koreans are also working with ACEL (Canadian designer and builder of the CANDU) to implement "DUPIC", the process to use the spent nuclear fuel from light water reactors as fuel in heavy water reactors, namely the CANDU. In theory, the DUPIC applied to CANDUs could run in effect forever on the 'waste' of the worlds light water reactors. Nice, huh?
DUPIC will lower the volume of high level waste in Korea. They have several long term facilities being planned, but depending on how well DUPIC works out, they may scale down any geological storage facilities.
The Koreans are also working on advanced reprocessing facilities to recover the 97% of the energy that sits in spent nuclear fuel facilities.
The Koreans are forging ahead to nuclearized their economy. Their state owned electrical grid provides a very reliable source of high quality energy, which will only get better as the more reliable APR-1400s go on line. In this sense, they are an example for the rest of the world, especially the United States.