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The Public Engagement Commission on Spent Nuclear Fuel Management (PECOS) wrapped up a 20-month public debate process on June 29 with a final recommendation to Energy Minister Yoon Sang-jick on how to manage spent nuclear fuel.

With proposals including the selection of a permanent disposal facility site by 2020 and the construction of short-term facilities for preliminary storage at plants where temporary storage facilities are nearing capacity, the recommendation is already expected to raise an outcry.

The main thrust of PECOS’s roadmap involves completing and operating permanent disposal facilities by 2051. Doing so will first require selecting locations by 2020 for a “pre-disposal storage facility” for nuclear waste and an underground institute to research permanent disposal facility options; the pre-disposal facility would then need to be completed between 2027 and 2030.

PECOS also recommended constructing the two facilities in the same area where the permanent storage facility would be located, noting that a different location would not only raise transportation issues but also mean twice as much potential conflict with local communities.

The goal of selecting a permanent disposal facility site by 2020 might be unrealistic. Spent nuclear fuel is high-level radioactive waste, and it previously took 19 years to select sites for the disposal of less dangerous intermediate-level waste (ILW) and low-level waste (LLW). Construction began after the selection of Gyeongju as a site in 2005, but an initially scheduled dedication ceremony for the first stage of the disposal facility on June 24 has been postponed.

The proposal attracting more attention for now in practical terms involves construction of short-term storage within the nuclear power plants. Even if a pre-disposal storage facility site can be selected by 2020 as scheduled, construction is expected to be completed by 2027 at the earliest.

But facilities that are currently keeping waste in temporary on-site storage now are expected to reach capacity before then: by 2019 for the heavy water reactor at Wolseong, and 2024 for the light water reactor at Hanbit. The situation stems from previous assumptions of a maximum expansion of temporary storage capabilities with relocation of waste to other reactors with spare space in the same complex, or the placement of high-density storage racks. The result would mean a lag even if the pre-disposal storage facilities are completed around 2027 as planned.

Another of PECOS’s recommendations is to build short-term storage facilities within the plants. The idea is to relocate spent fuel from its current temporary storage to the short-term on-site facilities first, and to move it from pre-disposal storage to permanent disposal once the final site is selected.

PECOS also proposed giving incentives in the form of usage fees to the different regions where short-term storage is built in addition to current temporary storage facilities. This too is expected to trigger objections, since it would mean constructing new spent nuclear fuel facilities to be used for the next several decades in regions that already have nuclear power plants. An outcry is already surfacing in Gyeongju, where opponents say the measure would violate a law made at the time the ILW and LLW facilities were built specifying that “no spent nuclear fuel facilities” would be built there.

“The only difference with this recommendation is that includes the new term ‘short-term shortage facility,’” said Lee Heon-seok, president of the group Energy Justice Actions.

“The administration’s only focus has been on coming up with rationalizations for building spent nuclear fuel facilities within the nuclear power plants after it promised not to in the past,” Lee added.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy plans to use the recommendation to develop a framework plan for spent nuclear fuel management.

By Song Kyung-hwa, staff reporter

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