South Korea confirms need for new nuclear reactors

[NNadir]

A link to the article: South Korea confirms need for new reactors

Excerpts:

Two new large nuclear power reactors and 700 MW of small modular reactor capacity should be built by 2038 - in addition to the large reactors already under construction or planned - under South Korea's latest 15-year long-term energy plan, which has now been finalised(sic).

The 11th Basic Power Supply and Demand Plan, a draft of which was released in May last year, was presented to a plenary session of the National Assembly by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy on 19 February. It was approved by the National Assembly's Power Policy Review Committee on 21 February.

The Basic Power Supply and Demand Plan contains domestic power generation facility plans for the next 15 years. It is updated by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy every two years. The 11th basic plan includes plans from 2024 to 2038...

...Under the draft plan, the portion of carbon-free energy sources in the country's energy mix will increase from about 40% in 2023 to 70% by 2038. It says nuclear power generation is expected to grow from 180.5 TWh in 2023 to 248.3 TWh in 2038. The portion of nuclear power generation will grow from 30.7% in 2023 to 35.2% in 2038. The country's 26 reactors currently provide about one-third of its electricity...

This comes under the general rubric of "too little, too late," but at least they're no longer talking, as was discussed in the past in South Korea, of nuclear phase outs.

South Korea has one CANDU type reactor (PHWR, pressurized heavy water reactor), which in theory can be used to act as a thermal breeder reactor with fuels containing, ideally, a mixture of plutonium, uranium and thorium.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to build a few more CANDU types there.

[John ONeill]

1. Korean Candus

'South Korea has one CANDU type reactor'
Three actually - they built four, but closed one during the Moon Jae-In presidency.
https://pris.iaea.org/PRIS/CountryStatistics/ReactorDetails.aspx?current=407
John O'Neill

[NNadir]

2. Thank you, you are correct. I apparently confused the number of plant sites with the number of reactors.

There are four PHWR at one site.

This puts South Korea in good shape to go around the need for enriched fuel, particularly in a DUPIC type cycle.