Toward Post-Fukushima No. 7

7. What’s going in Korean Governmental Nuclear
Authorities toward Post- Fukushima
Lee, Kyungho
ACT, Co. Ltd., Korea

About four months had passed since Fukushima

the positive PR (public relations) toward Korean

accident which occurred on March 11th, 2011.

people as well as foreign customers Korean

Scale 9.0 earthquake and tsunami hit east Japan

governmental nuclear authorities have prepared soand these gave a severe disaster (more thanmany provisions toward post-Fukushima.

15,000:died and more than 7,000:missing) to Japanand especially to Fukushima nuclear power plants.

MEST (Ministry of Education and Science &Technology), which prepares for the nuclear policy

Before the accident, Korea had enjoyed a nuclear

and performs the inspections toward nuclear power

Renaissance due to many good news like theplants, performed the safety inspection from Marchsuccess of UAE project, Jordan project, etc. which

23rd till April 30th toward total nuclear power

wereunfortunately,plants to identify the safety based on the mostFukushima accident took away the enjoyment andsevere accident scenario(earthquake->large scale

made a slump in Korean nuclear industry.

tsunami->power cutoff->large scale accident). As

achievedin2009.

But

the results of this inspection, MEST plans to
Many Korean people worried about the effects ofproceed total 50 long and short term improvement

Fukushima accident. The worries are; 1) Why

countermeasures for 5 years from 2011 to overcome

radioactive materials come to Korea although thethe earthquake, tsunami and severe accidents.

westerlies

theThese improvements will be reported to theradioactive nuclide to eastern countries? 2) The

governmental safety committee for review by aaccumulated effects of radioactive materials on

half-year

body may be very severe although the quantities

improvements will give a strong reliability toare so small? 3) The rain can cause theKorean people and Korea can lead the nuclear

contamination 4) Is it possible to eat the fish? 5)

industry over the world toward post-Fukushima.

canprotect

thetransferofterm.

MEST

thinksthattheseAre the young babies safe against Fukushima
accident? As the results of these worries, someKHNP (Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co., Ltd),

Korean people bought much drinking water andwhich is a sole nuclear power generation company

salt as well as sea mustard & sea tangle. Somein Korea, also inspected all nuclear power plants

elementary schools at Kyunggi province had beenthru March 16-18 in himself. MEST inspection wasclosed to protect the students.

performed from March 28th till April 13th.
Especially Kori #1 unit, which is planned to extend

To recover the uncertain situation and to raise
1the lifetime, was inspected in detail by KINS
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Toward Post-Fukushima No. 7(Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety; a regulatory

emergency core cooling water, reliability on passive

authority under MEST) from April 22nd till May

type safety system, uncertainty at the latter stage

3rd. The detailed plan for reinforcing the safetyof core melting and performance of containment

toward post-Fukushima is shown in table. 1

vessel at severe accident condition. Because thesevereaccident

study

ismuchrelatedtoTable 1 Plan for reinforcing the safety towardPSA(Probabilistic safety assessment), KAERI has

post-Fukushima

developed FTREX(Fault tree reliability evaluation

Main activities
Nuclearpower
plantsareautomatically stopped in case thescale is over 6.4.
Nuclearpower
plantsareautomatically stopped in case thescale is over 6.4.
Mobile type generator equipped in
the vehicle will be secured (one setper site).
Install PAR (passive autocatalyticrecombiner) at all nuclear power
plants to control hydrogen.
Secure additional medicine as wellas protective goods (two times
than before).

eXpert) software for safety evaluation. The right toField
AgainstEarthquake
AgainstTsunamiProtection ofpower system
Against thesevereaccidents
Emergency
healthcare
Systemsell this software was given to EPRI in U.S.A andthe sale was recorded over 600,000 U$ so far andKAERI will focus the development of computer
programs on severe accident analysis toward
post-Fukushima.
KEPCO NF(Nuclear Fuel), as a sole nuclear fuelmanufacturing company, plans to develop the new
cladding tube to restrict the hydrogen production
in consideration of severe accident and the complex

KINS (Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety) was sobusy so far to check the environmental radiation asmaterial (SiC) cladding tube to overcome theweakness of Zr tube toward post-Fukushima.

well as to check the contamination level towardpassengers into Korea. KINS had many jobs after

The plans at Korean governmental nuclear

Fukushima accident and the president, Mr. Leeauthorities toward post-Fukushima are briefly

MB also visited to KINS on May 17th to check thereviewed as above. Even Fukushima accident may

nationalandgive a bad effects and a deep slump to nuclear

encourage KINS’ activities. KINS had developed

industry over the world, we believe this can give aSIREN (System for Identifying Radiation inbright light to the nuclear industry in near future

Environments

Fukushima

for more perfect safe shutdown and cooling inenvironmental

nuclear power plant. This can also lead to zeroradiation monitoring & space analysis module,

defect in nuclear power plant against the naturalmodule to meet the foreign radioactive accidents

environmental disasters like tsunami.

accident,

radiation

monitoringnationwide)

whichconsists

systemafterofand module for surveying radioactivity at site. Theweather data at total 75 points are inputted by 6hours interval.

Conclusively, I would like to emphasize the word"盡人事待天命"(a Chinese proverb which means"We can only do our best and leave the rest toKAERI(KoreaAtomicEnergy

Researchprovidence.") toward post-Fukushima and alsoInstitute), as a R&D authority, will focus the study

would like to offer the word of consolation to theon severe accidents. KAERI plans to study in depth

tsunami victims. Cheer up !

on the behavior of fuel following to LOCA( at Coreand SFP), hydraulic behavior at core relating toAugust 2011

the depressurization at RCS and the injection of2Copyright © JAPAN NUS CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved