[Editorial] Nuclear waste panel

The government has taken a first step toward tackling the thorny problem of dealing with spent nuclear fuel rods by launching a private commission tasked with raising awareness and understanding of the inflammatory issue.

The 15-member panel will conduct a series of public forums to allow citizens to discuss how and where to store spent fuel rods. Based on the views expressed at these meetings, it will present policy recommendations to the government by the end of next year.

Currently, spent fuel rods are stored in pools at nuclear reactors. But these pools are forecast to start filling up in 2016 and reach saturation by 2024. This means not much time is left for Korea to find an alternative.

The panel will discuss two options. One is to build a permanent storage facility that can last for hundreds of thousands of years. This option, however, is unlikely to be adopted as no such facility has ever been built anywhere in the world.

The other option, which is used by other countries facing a similar problem, is an interim solution called dry cask storage. This method puts spent fuel rods in steel cylinders, which are surrounded by additional steel, concrete and other shielding material.

One key question regarding this approach is where to build the facilities. A country can choose between two alternatives. One is to build a centralized facility to store all spent fuel rods, while the other is to build smaller dry cask systems at power plant sites.

For Korea, the first alternative may be difficult to adopt, not just because of the difficulty in selecting a site for such a facility but because of the problems involved in transporting spent fuel rods from reactors to storage.

The second approach is not without its problems, however. Residents who live near nuclear power plants are highly likely to oppose interim installations built nearby.

These and other issues will be discussed in the commission’s public debates. For the panel, it is important to ensure that the debates are conducted in an unbiased way. The government has reportedly selected the panel’s members with this point in mind.

Yet two members of the panel who represent environmental advocates refuse to participate on the grounds that the member who has been elected chairman of the panel is a pro-government figure in their view.

The withdrawal decision was premature, given that nothing about the operation of the panel has been set yet. The two members should join the commission. At the same time, the government needs to ensure that the panel operates independently.