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The JoongAng | Kim Myung-ja President, The Seoul Forum for International Affairs; President Emeritus, The Korean Federation of Science and Technology Societies; Former Minister of Environment;
2022.04.25
As of 2021, 33 countries run nuclear power reactors. The following lists the number of nuclear power plants in each country in the order of the total amount of electricity generated: U.S. (94), France (56), China (50), Japan (33), Russia (38), and South Korea (24). First being introduced by developed countries and countries in the Eastern bloc, developing countries have also started installing nuclear power plants where a total of 444 nuclear plants are in operation worldwide. South Korea began operating its first nuclear power plant in 1978 and in 2009 became the sixth country to export nuclear power plants thanks to its technological prowess and price competitiveness.
The 1958 US Shippingport atomic power station was the first commercial nuclear power plant to use nuclear energy. The reactor demonstrated pressurized water reactor technology (PWR technology) which was also used on the first nuclear submarine, Nautilus. The Nautilus was the first successful project of President Eisenhower’s plans which was proposed at the UN General Assembly in the 1953 “Atoms for Peace” speech. After accepting the consultation that nuclear energy will become the game changer in the U.S.-Soviet cold war, he proposed American leadership to develop peaceful applications of nuclear energy in the Cold War context of the Soviet Union successfully testing their first nuclear device in 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean war in 1950.
Using nuclear power energy as its diplomatic strategy, the United States amended its Atomic Energy Act in 1954 to promote cooperation with its allies and to allow private sector ownership of nuclear facilities. In 1957, the Price-Anderson Act was enacted to provide nuclear reactors to any country on the premise of monitoring and to compensate for the damage caused by nuclear power plant accidents. It was in 1956 when South Korea and the United States signed the US-ROK agreement for peaceful nuclear cooperation.
The nuclear power industry expanded worldwide thanks to its technological progress, economic feasibility, and high energy demand and oil prices in the 1960s. After the 1973 oil crisis, nuclear energy stood out as the cheapest, cleanest and the safest kind of energy. The accident at Three Mile Island (TMI) on March 28th 1979 casted a shadow on the atomic dream. There were no casualties despite it being a nuclear meltdown. This was because a one-meter-thick reactor container prevented a feasible disaster. President Carter and Lady Rosalynn inspected the facility just four days after the accident. As a trained nuclear engineer, Carter announced that “the United States will not be building new nuclear power plants.”
What exacerbated the nuclear threat was the movie ‘China Syndrome.’ The accident occurred just 12 days after the release of the disaster thriller film depicting the worst core meltdown. In the movie, reactor components melted into the earth’s crust all the way to China. The move was based on a fictional scenario and China is not even on the opposite side of the United States. However, the overlapping of a fiction and a real-life incident intensified the fears about nuclear energy.
In 1979, the United States had already approved the operation of 43 nuclear reactors and constructions of 129 new reactors. After the accident, plans to build new reactors were canceled and only those 53 that were already under construction were built. The biggest blow was a collapse in confidence in nuclear power technology and safety management. In the aftermath of this incident, it was only in 2012 when the construction of a new nuclear power plant was newly authorized. The global nuclear power industry received a setback out of shock that technology dangers cannot be managed even in the country with the best technology where nuclear power plants had originated. To make matters worse, the worst Chernobyl accident occurred in 1986.
Nuclear power is not free from politics. The Bush administration took a pro-nuclear policy, but the Obama administration put the brakes on it. Showing their strong commitment to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2009 Prague, the Obama administration cut budgets for the Yucca project for the disposal of used nuclear fuel, as well as the budgets for initiatives that called for global cooperation such as the Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative and the fourth generation nuclear systems Initiatives.
The number of U.S. operational reactors has been on the decline since its peak in 2012 with 102 reactors. The reason behind this was a combination of decreasing natural gas prices, expanding subsidies for renewable energy, worsening economic conditions due to stricter safety regulations, and business uncertainties in the privatized system. Yet the groundbreaking improvements in efficiency and the enhancements in power of the existing nuclear power plants are noteworthy. The increase in facility capacity between 1990 and 2010 was 1.5%. Nevertheless, nuclear power generation increased by 40% due to improvement in utilization, thermal efficiency, and power which amounts to the building of 29, 1000-megawatt nuclear reactors.
The U.S., which is rich in energy sources, will not suffer from security threats even with its ever-changing nuclear power plant policies. But the case of Korea is different where economic security will be threatened. Transition from the denuclearization policy is expected to be a rough path due to the industrial ecosystem that has collapsed so-far. Extending the design life will also not be easy. Gori Unit 1 was permanently suspended in 2017 after a 10-year extension. The evaluation at the time was that it could continue to be under operation for more than 20 years technologically and economically, but it was decided at 10-years. One time, it was later found that there had been an incident when the power had been completely lost for 12 minutes. Meeting thorough criteria to expand the period of operation time is not an easy process, and challenges of social controversy over safety issues are also expected.
The U.S. nuclear strategy is inspirational. In order to overcome the degradation of the nuclear power plant economy and the weakening of competitiveness as it approaches the end of its design life, the U.S. government carries out a number of strategies: continuously operating the existing large nuclear power plants, demonstrating the viability of next-generation nuclear reactors, and developing next-generation nuclear fuel cycles. Terra Power's Natrium project, X-energy's hydrogen generating micro-commercial road, and Newscale’s SMR project are some of the key examples. The world which has been calling for carbon neutrality has faced a number of crises such as the energy crisis due to the Ukrainian crisis. In today's world where the emphasis is on economic security fostered by developed countries, I anticipate the diplomatic strategy to strengthen relations between Korea and the United States from the U.S.-ROK Nuclear Cooperation Agreement to further strategic fields of technological security and economic security.
