Nuclear waste a growing headache for SKorea

Source: AP-Excite

By YOUKYUNG LEE

ULSAN, South Korea (AP) - North Korea's weapons program is not the only nuclear headache for South Korea. The country's radioactive waste storage is filling up as its nuclear power industry burgeons, but what South Korea sees as its best solution - reprocessing the spent fuel so it can be used again - faces stiff opposition from its U.S. ally.

South Korea fired up its first reactor in 1978 and since then the resource poor nation's reliance on atomic energy has steadily grown. It is now the world's fifth-largest nuclear energy producer, operating 23 reactors. But unlike the rapid growth of its nuclear industry, its nuclear waste management plan has been moving at a snail's pace.

A commission will be launched before this summer to start public discussion on the permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel rods, which must be locked away for tens of thousands of years. Temporary storage for used rods in spent fuel pools at nuclear power plants is more than 70 percent full.

Undeterred by Japan's Fukushima disaster or recent local safety failings, South Korea plans to boost nuclear to 40 percent of its energy needs with the addition of 11 new reactors by 2024.

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Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130326/DA58NE0G2.html

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In this Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013 photo, nuclear power plants, Kori 1, right, and Shin Kori 2 are seen in Ulsan, South Korea. North Korea’s weapons program is not the only nuclear headache for South Korea. The country’s radioactive waste storage is filling up as its nuclear power industry burgeons, but what South Korea sees as its best solution _ reprocessing the spent fuel so it can be used again _ faces stiff opposition from its U.S. ally.(AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)