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Site selection for low and intermediate level radioactive waste disposal facility in Korea
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Progress in Nuclear Energy 50 (2008) 680e682 www.elsevier.com/locate/pnucene
Site selection for low and intermediate level radioactive waste disposal facility in Korea Si-Tae Yun* Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd., 160 Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 135-881, Republic of Korea
Abstract The radioactive waste can be classified into low and intermediate level waste (LILW), spent fuel (SF) and high level waste according to the level of the emitted radioactivity in Korea. Currently radioactive waste is temporarily stored in the four nuclear power plant sites, where the LILW and SF are expected to be saturated from 2008 and 2016, respectively. Therefore the construction of a radioactive waste treatment facility is urgently needed to effectively and safely manage the radioactive waste under the government’s supervision. Site securing effort for radioactive waste disposal facility in Korea had begun from 1986. During the 18 years from 1986 to 2004 nine times attempts of site securing were implemented. At 10th attempt when the Kyoungju site was selected as final one in 2005, our government had made special basic principles such as institution of special law, locating spent fuel interim storage in another site, and public acceptance shall be confirmed through the resident voting at each local government. Under the above basic principles, resident voting was implemented in the four local governments, which were Gunsan, Youngdok, Pohang, and Kyoungju. Among these local governments Kyoungju city recorded the highest approval rate of resident voting and so was determined as the final site. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Site securing; LILW; Radioactive waste; Resident vote
1. Introduction Site securing effort for radioactive waste disposal facility in Korea had begun from 1986. During the 18 years from 1986 to 2004 nine times attempts of site securing were implemented, but the results were unsuccessful. At 10th attempt when the Kyoungju site was selected as final one in 2005, our government had made special basic principles such as institution of special law, locating spent fuel interim storage in another site, and public acceptance shall be confirmed through the resident voting at each local government. Under the above basic principles, resident voting was implemented in the four local governments, which were Gunsan, Youngdok, Pohang, and Kyoungju. As the result of resident voting Kyoungju city recorded the highest approval rate and * Tel.: þ82 54 778 1370; fax: þ82 54 778 1266. E-mail address: [email protected] 0149-1970/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2007.11.056
so was determined as the final site for low and intermediate level waste repository. 2. Nuclear power generation in Korea At the end of 2005, nuclear power plants which are operating commercially are 20, 16 PWR and 4 BWR, and located in four different areas such as Younggwang, Kori, Wolsong, and Ulchin as shown in Table 1. Approximately 40% of the electricity consumed in 2005 was generated by nuclear power plant. 3. The quantity of LILW in Korea In Korea, LILW is originated from the nuclear power plants, hospitals, universities, researching institutes and related industries, but mostly from nuclear power plants. As of December in 2005, LILW stocks in the nuclear power plants
S.-T. Yun / Progress in Nuclear Energy 50 (2008) 680e682
and deliberation for a long term period by taking account of the state policy direction and domestic and foreign trend of technical development.
Table 1 Status of nuclear power plants in Korea Location
Number of operation
Reactor type
Remarks
Younggwang
6
PWR
Kori
4
PWR
Under construction: 2 Planning: 2
Wolsong
4
BWR
Under construction: 2
Ulchin
6
PWR
Planning: 2
Total
681
5. Siting procedure
20
Table 2 Current stocks of LILW in nuclear power plants (unit: 200 l drum) Location
Storage capacity
Cumulative quantity
Year of saturation
Younggwang Kori Wolsong Ulchin
23,300 50,200 9000 17,400
14,325 34,099 5328 13,136
2012 2014 2009 2008
Total
99,900
66,888
Following the resolution of the separation plan by the 253rd AEC, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. (KHNP) has newly promoted to secure the site. The main siting procedure is indicated in Fig. 1. As of the end of September 2005, the request for resident voting on the four volunteer sites (Kyoungju, Gunsan, Youngdok, and Pohang) had been finalized and the governor of the local government should decide on the acceptance and execution for resident voting after October 4. The resident voting was expected to be held concurrently on the four areas on the designated date (November 2) and the site that had the highest approval rate given the 1/3 of total eligible voter’s participation and the majority of 1/2 or more approval rate in the voting shall have been selected as the final candidate site. 6. Detail status of the promotion of 2005 site securing
are about 67,000 drums as shown in Table 2. From 2008 in Ulchin storing facility will be saturated gradually. 4. Background of site securing The basic policy of Korea’s radioactive waste management business is based on the National Radioactive Waste Management Policy voted at the 249th Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). According to the measure, LILW shall be temporarily stored at onsite storage facility at the nuclear power plant and the radioisotope waste storage facility, and then those shall be permanently disposed through near surface repository or rock cavern repository after 2008. The interim storage facility for SF will be constructed by 2016 by taking accounts of the term and direction of the national policy. Korea has made utmost effort to select a site of the radioactive waste management facility including both LILW repository and SF interim storage since 1986 but the results were unsuccessful. Accordingly, during the 253rd Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) held on December 2004, a measure has been decided to separate the LILW disposal facility from the SF interim storage facility to preferentially construct an LILW disposal facility. The spent fuel disposal policy including the construction of an SF interim storage facility shall be promoted under the national agreement through ample review
In the year of 2005, various efforts have been applied to secure an LILW disposal site of which the key efforts include the siting committee, volunteer site supporting special law, high intensity proton accelerator invitation support, and the promotion of IAEA peer review. All these efforts are centered on the public acceptance and confidence of the safety credit on the overall project. The progress summary is indicated in Table 3. First of all, the siting committee (hereinafter ‘‘the committee’’) consisted of 17 experts in diverse sectors including science, technology, culture, social, media, legal and civil group had been launched for a fair and transparent siting work. The committee is an organization to comprehensively review and decide on the general issues of the siting and conduct examination of the site selection criteria, review of the feasibility, selection of public survey area, selection of the resident vote recommended area (if required, conduct public survey management) and selection of final candidate site. The committee had four subordinate committees (site suitability committee, public-opinion poll committee, public relation cooperation committee and site selection criteria committee) according to the detail work characteristics and contents. Since then, the ‘‘Special Law on the Support for the Volunteer Site of the Low and Intermediate Level Waste Disposal Facilities’’ has been legislated as Statute no. 7444 on March
Public notice
Application for candidate site
Request for Resident voting
Instance for Resident voting
Execution of vote
Selection of site
June 16
~ Aug. 31
Sep. 15
after Oct. 4
Nov. 2
Nov. 3
Fig. 1. Siting procedure.
S.-T. Yun / Progress in Nuclear Energy 50 (2008) 680e682
682 Table 3 Site securing progress status in 2005
Table 4 The result of resident voting
Date
Contents
Local government
Kyoungju
Gunsan
Youngdok
Pohang
2004.12.17
The 253rd Atomic Energy Commission
Total electors (men) Total voters (men) Turnout of voters (%) Approval rate (%)
208,607 147,636 70.8 89.5
196,980 138,192 70.2 84.4
37,536 30,107 80.2 79.3
374,697 178,586 47.7 67.5
- Separate the LILW disposal facility and SF interim storage 2005.3.11
Launching of siting committee
2005.3.31
Establishment of Special Supporting Act - Special act on supporting the local community around the low and intermediate level radioactive waste disposal facility
2005.4e2005.8
Preliminary site investigation
2005.6.16
Announcement on the siting procedure
2005.8.31
Closing of site application - Four local governments: Kyoungju, Gunsan, Youngdok and Pohang
2005.9.15
Request resident voting officially
2005.11.2
Resident voting at four local governments districts
2005.11.3
Official announcement of final candidate site
31, and its relative Enforcement Ordinance was legislated on September 14. This special law guarantees the safety of the facility, democratic siting process and economical support. Furthermore, the law provides a supporting system to the volunteer sites to contribute the development of the volunteer area, improve residents’ life and ultimately promote a smooth construction and operation of the low and intermediate level waste disposal facility. The special law can be largely classified into the safety of the facility, democratic siting process and economical support to the volunteer area. According to the announcement of the committee on the order of the site suitability on April, the preliminary site suitability study had been launched on the total nine sites of the six cities (Gunsan, Kyoungju, Youngdok, Pohang, Uljin and Samchuk) and the individual survey per area had been finalized around the end of August. Based on the survey results of each site, the site suitability committee had held a potential evaluation on the suitability. The suitability evaluation had been focused by stage; stage 1 e site safety evaluation and stage 2 e business promoting condition and evaluation on business promoting conditions were only performed on sites that had received the conformity on the site safety. While the preliminary site suitability survey was being held, the government had decided to install the proton accelerator at the same local district to increase the volunteering atmosphere.
According to the applications closed on August 31, four local governments (Kyoungju, Gunsan, Youngdok, and Pohang) had applied as volunteer sites. These four areas e Kyoungju city Yangbuk myeon Bongilri, Kunsan city Soryongdong Bieungdo, Youngdok gun Chuksan myeon Sangwonri, and Pohang city Jukjang myeon Sangokri e were already part of the preliminary site suitability survey targets conducted from April to August and the survey was already concluded at the time of closing of the application. Since then, the final evaluation result on the site suitability and resident vote schedule was announced on September 15. According to the released result, all these four areas had positive safety results and have no special cause to be excluded from the candidate site. Furthermore, they had been evaluated to be suitable as an LILW disposal facility candidate site by confirming to the recommendation standard. Accordingly, the heads of applied local government had jointly announced and signed to request the resident voting after October 4, and designate November 2 as a temporary holiday to hold the resident voting. Government made the basic principle on the result of resident voting. First principle is that turnout of voters must be over than 50%. Second principle is that final candidate site will be located in the highest approval rate recording district. The result of resident voting is shown in Table 4.
7. Conclusion For the past 20 years, Korea has not been able to achieve any particular results on the management project of the radioactive waste, however, the promotion of the project has left us an important lesson that people’s agreement and trust are required above all things. Accordingly, the policy has been converted to increase the democratic process, transparency, social and regional acceptance and credibility on safety. The legalization of the regional support system through special law, the fair management of the siting procedure by siting committee and the peer review by renowned international organization such as IAEA are parts of the efforts and determinations to select the site based on the social trust and approval. And as such we hope that the site securing for the LILW disposal facility that has been a pending national issue and unsettled task should be concluded in the near future.
Progress in Nuclear Energy 50 (2008) 680e682 www.elsevier.com/locate/pnucene
Site selection for low and intermediate level radioactive waste disposal facility in Korea Si-Tae Yun* Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd., 160 Samseong-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 135-881, Republic of Korea
Abstract The radioactive waste can be classified into low and intermediate level waste (LILW), spent fuel (SF) and high level waste according to the level of the emitted radioactivity in Korea. Currently radioactive waste is temporarily stored in the four nuclear power plant sites, where the LILW and SF are expected to be saturated from 2008 and 2016, respectively. Therefore the construction of a radioactive waste treatment facility is urgently needed to effectively and safely manage the radioactive waste under the government’s supervision. Site securing effort for radioactive waste disposal facility in Korea had begun from 1986. During the 18 years from 1986 to 2004 nine times attempts of site securing were implemented. At 10th attempt when the Kyoungju site was selected as final one in 2005, our government had made special basic principles such as institution of special law, locating spent fuel interim storage in another site, and public acceptance shall be confirmed through the resident voting at each local government. Under the above basic principles, resident voting was implemented in the four local governments, which were Gunsan, Youngdok, Pohang, and Kyoungju. Among these local governments Kyoungju city recorded the highest approval rate of resident voting and so was determined as the final site. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Site securing; LILW; Radioactive waste; Resident vote
1. Introduction Site securing effort for radioactive waste disposal facility in Korea had begun from 1986. During the 18 years from 1986 to 2004 nine times attempts of site securing were implemented, but the results were unsuccessful. At 10th attempt when the Kyoungju site was selected as final one in 2005, our government had made special basic principles such as institution of special law, locating spent fuel interim storage in another site, and public acceptance shall be confirmed through the resident voting at each local government. Under the above basic principles, resident voting was implemented in the four local governments, which were Gunsan, Youngdok, Pohang, and Kyoungju. As the result of resident voting Kyoungju city recorded the highest approval rate and * Tel.: þ82 54 778 1370; fax: þ82 54 778 1266. E-mail address: [email protected] 0149-1970/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pnucene.2007.11.056
so was determined as the final site for low and intermediate level waste repository. 2. Nuclear power generation in Korea At the end of 2005, nuclear power plants which are operating commercially are 20, 16 PWR and 4 BWR, and located in four different areas such as Younggwang, Kori, Wolsong, and Ulchin as shown in Table 1. Approximately 40% of the electricity consumed in 2005 was generated by nuclear power plant. 3. The quantity of LILW in Korea In Korea, LILW is originated from the nuclear power plants, hospitals, universities, researching institutes and related industries, but mostly from nuclear power plants. As of December in 2005, LILW stocks in the nuclear power plants
S.-T. Yun / Progress in Nuclear Energy 50 (2008) 680e682
and deliberation for a long term period by taking account of the state policy direction and domestic and foreign trend of technical development.
Table 1 Status of nuclear power plants in Korea Location
Number of operation
Reactor type
Remarks
Younggwang
6
PWR
Kori
4
PWR
Under construction: 2 Planning: 2
Wolsong
4
BWR
Under construction: 2
Ulchin
6
PWR
Planning: 2
Total
681
5. Siting procedure
20
Table 2 Current stocks of LILW in nuclear power plants (unit: 200 l drum) Location
Storage capacity
Cumulative quantity
Year of saturation
Younggwang Kori Wolsong Ulchin
23,300 50,200 9000 17,400
14,325 34,099 5328 13,136
2012 2014 2009 2008
Total
99,900
66,888
Following the resolution of the separation plan by the 253rd AEC, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. Ltd. (KHNP) has newly promoted to secure the site. The main siting procedure is indicated in Fig. 1. As of the end of September 2005, the request for resident voting on the four volunteer sites (Kyoungju, Gunsan, Youngdok, and Pohang) had been finalized and the governor of the local government should decide on the acceptance and execution for resident voting after October 4. The resident voting was expected to be held concurrently on the four areas on the designated date (November 2) and the site that had the highest approval rate given the 1/3 of total eligible voter’s participation and the majority of 1/2 or more approval rate in the voting shall have been selected as the final candidate site. 6. Detail status of the promotion of 2005 site securing
are about 67,000 drums as shown in Table 2. From 2008 in Ulchin storing facility will be saturated gradually. 4. Background of site securing The basic policy of Korea’s radioactive waste management business is based on the National Radioactive Waste Management Policy voted at the 249th Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). According to the measure, LILW shall be temporarily stored at onsite storage facility at the nuclear power plant and the radioisotope waste storage facility, and then those shall be permanently disposed through near surface repository or rock cavern repository after 2008. The interim storage facility for SF will be constructed by 2016 by taking accounts of the term and direction of the national policy. Korea has made utmost effort to select a site of the radioactive waste management facility including both LILW repository and SF interim storage since 1986 but the results were unsuccessful. Accordingly, during the 253rd Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) held on December 2004, a measure has been decided to separate the LILW disposal facility from the SF interim storage facility to preferentially construct an LILW disposal facility. The spent fuel disposal policy including the construction of an SF interim storage facility shall be promoted under the national agreement through ample review
In the year of 2005, various efforts have been applied to secure an LILW disposal site of which the key efforts include the siting committee, volunteer site supporting special law, high intensity proton accelerator invitation support, and the promotion of IAEA peer review. All these efforts are centered on the public acceptance and confidence of the safety credit on the overall project. The progress summary is indicated in Table 3. First of all, the siting committee (hereinafter ‘‘the committee’’) consisted of 17 experts in diverse sectors including science, technology, culture, social, media, legal and civil group had been launched for a fair and transparent siting work. The committee is an organization to comprehensively review and decide on the general issues of the siting and conduct examination of the site selection criteria, review of the feasibility, selection of public survey area, selection of the resident vote recommended area (if required, conduct public survey management) and selection of final candidate site. The committee had four subordinate committees (site suitability committee, public-opinion poll committee, public relation cooperation committee and site selection criteria committee) according to the detail work characteristics and contents. Since then, the ‘‘Special Law on the Support for the Volunteer Site of the Low and Intermediate Level Waste Disposal Facilities’’ has been legislated as Statute no. 7444 on March
Public notice
Application for candidate site
Request for Resident voting
Instance for Resident voting
Execution of vote
Selection of site
June 16
~ Aug. 31
Sep. 15
after Oct. 4
Nov. 2
Nov. 3
Fig. 1. Siting procedure.
S.-T. Yun / Progress in Nuclear Energy 50 (2008) 680e682
682 Table 3 Site securing progress status in 2005
Table 4 The result of resident voting
Date
Contents
Local government
Kyoungju
Gunsan
Youngdok
Pohang
2004.12.17
The 253rd Atomic Energy Commission
Total electors (men) Total voters (men) Turnout of voters (%) Approval rate (%)
208,607 147,636 70.8 89.5
196,980 138,192 70.2 84.4
37,536 30,107 80.2 79.3
374,697 178,586 47.7 67.5
- Separate the LILW disposal facility and SF interim storage 2005.3.11
Launching of siting committee
2005.3.31
Establishment of Special Supporting Act - Special act on supporting the local community around the low and intermediate level radioactive waste disposal facility
2005.4e2005.8
Preliminary site investigation
2005.6.16
Announcement on the siting procedure
2005.8.31
Closing of site application - Four local governments: Kyoungju, Gunsan, Youngdok and Pohang
2005.9.15
Request resident voting officially
2005.11.2
Resident voting at four local governments districts
2005.11.3
Official announcement of final candidate site
31, and its relative Enforcement Ordinance was legislated on September 14. This special law guarantees the safety of the facility, democratic siting process and economical support. Furthermore, the law provides a supporting system to the volunteer sites to contribute the development of the volunteer area, improve residents’ life and ultimately promote a smooth construction and operation of the low and intermediate level waste disposal facility. The special law can be largely classified into the safety of the facility, democratic siting process and economical support to the volunteer area. According to the announcement of the committee on the order of the site suitability on April, the preliminary site suitability study had been launched on the total nine sites of the six cities (Gunsan, Kyoungju, Youngdok, Pohang, Uljin and Samchuk) and the individual survey per area had been finalized around the end of August. Based on the survey results of each site, the site suitability committee had held a potential evaluation on the suitability. The suitability evaluation had been focused by stage; stage 1 e site safety evaluation and stage 2 e business promoting condition and evaluation on business promoting conditions were only performed on sites that had received the conformity on the site safety. While the preliminary site suitability survey was being held, the government had decided to install the proton accelerator at the same local district to increase the volunteering atmosphere.
According to the applications closed on August 31, four local governments (Kyoungju, Gunsan, Youngdok, and Pohang) had applied as volunteer sites. These four areas e Kyoungju city Yangbuk myeon Bongilri, Kunsan city Soryongdong Bieungdo, Youngdok gun Chuksan myeon Sangwonri, and Pohang city Jukjang myeon Sangokri e were already part of the preliminary site suitability survey targets conducted from April to August and the survey was already concluded at the time of closing of the application. Since then, the final evaluation result on the site suitability and resident vote schedule was announced on September 15. According to the released result, all these four areas had positive safety results and have no special cause to be excluded from the candidate site. Furthermore, they had been evaluated to be suitable as an LILW disposal facility candidate site by confirming to the recommendation standard. Accordingly, the heads of applied local government had jointly announced and signed to request the resident voting after October 4, and designate November 2 as a temporary holiday to hold the resident voting. Government made the basic principle on the result of resident voting. First principle is that turnout of voters must be over than 50%. Second principle is that final candidate site will be located in the highest approval rate recording district. The result of resident voting is shown in Table 4.
7. Conclusion For the past 20 years, Korea has not been able to achieve any particular results on the management project of the radioactive waste, however, the promotion of the project has left us an important lesson that people’s agreement and trust are required above all things. Accordingly, the policy has been converted to increase the democratic process, transparency, social and regional acceptance and credibility on safety. The legalization of the regional support system through special law, the fair management of the siting procedure by siting committee and the peer review by renowned international organization such as IAEA are parts of the efforts and determinations to select the site based on the social trust and approval. And as such we hope that the site securing for the LILW disposal facility that has been a pending national issue and unsettled task should be concluded in the near future.