By Besides fixing our crappy airports here is something else America should be doing that Korea is passing us up at:
South Korea plans to spend 37 trillion won ($28.5 billion) building more nuclear and gas-fired power plants by 2022, to reduce its dependency on oil and meet rising demand for energy.
The country will build 12 more nuclear-powered plants, seven coal-fired plants and 11 fueled by liquefied natural gas by 2022, the Ministry of Knowledge Economy said in a statement today. The projects are part of a government power supply-and-demand plan that outlines investment for the next 15 years.
South Korea, which imports almost all its oil, is trying to cut reliance on crude and diversify energy sources after oil prices in New York climbed to a record $147.27 a barrel in July. By the end of 2022, power-generating capacity in Asia’s fourth- largest economy will rise to 100.9 gigawatts from the current 65.9 gigawatts, the ministry estimates.
“By building more nuclear plants, the most economical and cleanest energy, South Korea can cope with high oil prices and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions,” said Yun Hee Do, an analyst at Korea Investment & Securities Co.
The cost of nuclear power generation is 3 won per kilowatt compared with 22 won at coal-fired plants and 89 won for gas, according to the ministry.
Nuclear plants will provide 48 percent of generating capacity by 2022, up from 34 percent this year, the ministry said in its statement. The country will reduce reliance on oil-fired plants to 0.2 percent from 1.9 percent.
South Korea’s plans are based on estimates that electricity demand will increase an average 2.1 percent annually through 2022. Currently, the country has 20 commercial reactors, 40 coal-fired plants and 45 gas-fired plants. [Bloomberg]
A country as small as Korea as 20 reactors while the US has 104 total reactors. Those nucelar reactors in America accounts for 19% of our current energy needs. Korea’s nuclear power plants account for 34% of its current energy needs and after the completion of the new plants will account for nearly half. America I think should do the same thing and have at least half of its power come from nuclear energy as well.
However considering Barack Obama’s current opposition to the storage of nuclear waste, I don’t see it happening. If a country as small as Korea can safely store nuclear waste, why can’t America? Blame politics.
11:06 am on December 28th, 2008 1
Ahh… yeah.
… CAN a country as small as Korea store nuclear waste?
I was in Buan country, south west of Jeollabukdo, in 2003, when a couple of old people walked past me one pleasant evening, and one of them encouraged me (verbally) to beat up the local mayor (who had reneged on an election promise NOT to store nuclear waste locally… near the large national nature reserve there).
Within a week or so of having left the area I read that a large group of locals – about 100 or so – had caught him and indeed, had beaten the crap out of him.
So, I've been away since then.
Has their issue been resolved?
Who in Korea has the pleasure of having nuclear waste stored in their back yard these days? If I'm going to settle here for the next few years, I'd quite like to know that too, actually.
12:31 pm on December 28th, 2008 2
Smart move. Instead of giving all the money to the Arabs, take the same money and invest them in lasting infrastructure that will lower the bill from the Arabs.
1:38 pm on December 28th, 2008 3
I imagine the last two articles you linked to were supposed to show how Obama is holding off some new "safe" nuclear option for waste storage and it's all his fault the US isn't basking in limitless energy. But any storage for nuclear waste is on the large scale equivalent of hiding it under a big rock forever. That's hardly that safe. Besides, the famous Yucca mountain facility (if it ever opens) only has capacity for our waste until about 2030-2050 or so and then we'll need to build another facility and wall that off for eternity as well.
The Newsweek article mentions that France gets 80% of its energy from nuclear power, but neglects to mention that it has a worse problem than the US with waste. Their current method for disposal? Ship it to Russia, where you know it will be stored and handled safely.
I think it's reasonable for the US to hold off for a few years to think about what we're doing before making decisions that will last us for millions of years.
3:05 pm on December 28th, 2008 4
SEOKSO,
Yes, lets wait a few more years and leave our nuclear waste all over the country. Scattered about in whatever facility, Ever increasing and ever vulnerable to disaster or theft. We don't need to store in in a secure facility away from the millions of people that it currently affects.
lets worry more about the children a million years from now.
Are you a congressman/woman?
3:27 pm on December 28th, 2008 5
The solution is simple.
Convert all that radioactive waste to munitions and attack a third-world country.
Dilution is the solution to pollution.
I'm ready for my second Nobel Prize.
5:13 pm on December 28th, 2008 6
@ Gerry,
I'm not saying we shouldn't store the waste we already have, but even that is really just another storage facility and not a real solution. There are still many scientists who object to the Yucca mountain site because of its seismic instability and the serious potential for water contamination. The site sits on or near more than thirty faults and is at the youngest end of a chain of volcanic cinder cones, suggesting that it may sit on top of a magma bubble. Does that sound like a smart place to keep our most hazardous wastes?
For all its problems, we probably should use Yucca mountain at least for a while, simply because we've already build the damn thing and nothing else is available.
I'm just arguing that we should figure out what to do with the waste we already generate before building more reactors.
12:01 am on December 29th, 2008 7
Read the Newsweek article I linked to above, the science is on the side of Yucca Mountain but the politics is not. Thus that is why the US is left storing nuclear waste spread across the country instead of in a centralized location.
This is simply not in my back yard issue as Kiwi Teacha pointed above it was the same type of issue in Korea when the storage facility on an island in Buan county was constructed.
3:29 am on December 29th, 2008 8
I did read it, and if you look carefully, you'll notice that the scientist is quoted as saying that deep storage is the way to go, but says nothing about Yucca mountain specifically. (The article also says there are no faults in the area, but the USGS says there are: http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/gump/ymp/centralblock/cb… In fact, minor earthquakes happen there on a daily basis.) The article conveniently neglects the problems of safely transporting all that waste to Nevada as well. Have you looked at the science yourself or did you just trust a Newsweek reporter?
None of which matters, because the whole place is still just a stopgap that will fill up within a couple decades of opening. This is not the obvious solution you're claiming it is. No country has figured out a way to solve the problem of waste.
Oh, and incidentally, Yucca mountain sits on land claimed by the Western Shoshone as laid out in their treaty with the US, but that's okay because the US government unilaterally decided it was actually theirs. Not that I think that will sway anyone's mind.