South Korean Panel Supports Nuclear Plant Construction, Rejecting President Moon’s Plan To Stop It
Supporters of South Korean nuclear energy are celebrating today. Earlier this morning, a citizen’s panel decided that President Moon Jae-in had made a mistake by halting the Shin Kori 5 & 6 construction projects.
The 471-member panel, formed by President Moon to provide advice about his plan to phase out one of the world’s most successful and dynamic nuclear power plant construction and operations programs, spent three months reviewing information and discussing their recommendation for the in-progress projects.
The final vote was 59.5% in favor of completing the projects and 40.5% opposed to completion. When the panel was formed, Moon’s government had promised to abide by its advice.
Those twin construction projects, which were temporarily suspended in mid-July, were approximately 30% complete. They were both large, modern APR-1400 reactors with enhanced safety and efficiency compared to most existing units. Approximately $1.4 B had already been spent, but closing out the contracts and partially remediating the site would have added another $900 M to the project losses.
When he was elected president of South Korea with a solid majority, Moon promised that his country would stop building new nuclear power plants at home and that it would gradually phase out it’s domestic use of nuclear energy.
The two Shin Kori units were the same design as the four units being built by Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power at the Barakah site in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). That design is also being marketed as a competitive solution for several different international project opportunities.
Why Did South Koreans Elect A Strongly Antinuclear President?
Many nuclear energy supporters in the United States were surprised when South Korean voters elected a president with clearly expressed plans to eliminate an industry that had been strongly supported for several decades and had matured to the point it was achieving export success.
There were some pro-nuclear activists, however, who were not at all surprised. They were aware of antinuclear campaign efforts by groups like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, which had been increasingly active since the Fukushima reactor accidents.
They saw that those campaign efforts were making progress by capitalizing on several well-publicized incidents of corruption and improperly certified cabling and components in the nuclear supply chain. They also knew that Greenpeace had been actively promoting public screenings of a movie called Pandora that has been reported to have influenced both Moon’s position and his election.
That movie is a fictional tale of an event at a nuclear plant initiated by a moderate scale earthquake. Here is how Micheal Shellenberger summarized the movie’s plot and special effects.
After the power plant explodes, “Pandora” flashes manically back and forth between graphic scenes of workers suffering radiation poisoning, a hapless president overwhelmed by shadowy forces, and nostalgic reveries about the good old days, when Korea’s small southern towns were dominated by farming, fishing and tourism.
Some accounts of the background behind the shift in public trust of the nuclear industry, like this one from the Washington Post and this one from the New York Times, overlook or ignore the purposeful efforts to change hearts and minds by organizations that have been honing their antinuclear campaign skills for decades.
Although the citizens’ panel decided that stopping two expensive projects in midstream wasn’t advisable, a majority of the members expressed their support for reducing South Korea’s use of nuclear energy.
They remain cautious and distrustful of their internationally well-regarded nuclear industry, partially because they have been taught to fear the technology and partially because they have been repeatedly told that the participants in the industry cannot be trusted.
Of course, the reputation of clean nuclear energy has also been tarnished by sharing a name with nuclear weapons, especially on a peninsula that is rightfully concerned about being targeted by those incredibly destructive devices.
It doesn’t seem to sufficiently matter to the fearful that there are strong, successful provisions in place that keep South Korea’s nuclear energy industry widely separated from a nuclear weapons technology development effort.
There remains a continuing need to promote the benefits that being a nuclear technology leader provide to South Korea. Those promotional efforts must be truthful and should confront the untruths being spread by organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth.
The good guys achieved an important win, but the war on the Korean peninsula against the atom and in favor of increased consumption of imported natural gas – under a wind and solar cover story – is still being intensely fought.
A version of the above was first published on Forbes.com. It is republished here with permission.
Off topic (but not completely off topic, because it involves Shellenberger), your old pal Mark Z. Jacobson has decided to sue the group that published an article in PNAS that was critical of his study that “proved” that the US’s energy could be provided exclusively by renewable energy. The guy has no shame.
Shellenberger was not happy.
http://environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/11/1/stanford-university-professor-mark-z-jacobson-sues-prestigious-team-of-scientists-for-debunking-100-renewables
I think the Clack study will prove persuasive and that the suit will be dismissed with prejudice, giving Jacobson a much bigger self-inflicted black eye than the one he has now.
If Stanford was on the ball it would be investigating Jacobson for academic fraud right now. It could get rid of the embarrassment that he is and keep the Precourt money.
Well, since the suit has been filed in the same court used by Penn State professor Michael Mann when he sued Mark Steyn, some people are speculating that Jacobson strategically expects the suit just to linger indefinitely, costing the defendants money and time and having a chilling effect on any other researchers who might want to publish papers critical of his work.
Mann filed his defamation suit in 2012, and it still hasn’t been resolved.
Oh … and by the way … given the perverse culture in academia these days, I’m sure that Jacobson is very popular at Stanford. He directs his own program there. Why would Stanford’s faculty and administration want to investigate him for publishing results that they desperately want to believe?
Not at all on topic, but can’t think of where else to ask…
What was the name of the study that purported to show that nuclear electricity generation does not reduce CO2 emissions? And did I read a sound refutation here or at Brave New Climate or somewhere else or both?
Sturm. Or Storm. Or some such. I tried some searches but my search fu seems poor.
You’re thinking of Storm and Smith. As I seem to recall, Philip Smith died some years ago (so he no longer merits his own “crank” page). Here’s a good summary:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jan_Willem_Storm_van_Leeuwen
Mann and Jacobson probably bring in significant grant money.
That might stop being true for Jacobson after Clack’s massive academic bitch-slapping.
I hope his name becomes toxic.
Brian asked, perhaps rhetorically, “Why would [anyone] want to investigate him for publishing results that they desperately want to believe?”
Or perhaps not. Either way, it’s one not a few of us have been trying to wrap our heads around. Facts don’t matter. Yesterday saw release of the Fourth National Climate Assessment. NOAA, NASA, DoE, EPA, all reading from the same page. But facts don’t matter. Climate facts don’t matter to Luddite climate denialists, and energy facts don’t matter to Luddite “green” Environmentalists. Facts just cause both to further express their donkey genes, and further dig in their heels.
Why??? At considerable risk of over-generalization, I’ve been thinking an element perhaps is insecurity, expressing itself as hubris. Rod and Michael have been tracing the roots of this pro-fossil anti-nuclear anti-environmentalism back some fifty years green. Nearly three generations green. Part of it no doubt is tribalism. “I’m an Environmentalist because my Mom was an Environmentalist and nuclear energy is demon-spawn of the military-industrial complex and inherently evil. It’s true! We’ve always said so and I’ve known it all my life.”
Myside Bias: Why facts don’t change our minds.
A modest bit of humility might be of benefit, though perhaps not here. A fifteenth-century Italian political philosopher once observed “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. Which are you?”
It’s a tough question. Some might almost be forgiven for being reluctant to answer, fearing their own humanity.
My opinion is that Mark Jacobson is wrong about 100% renewables and is behaving unethically to file suit. Nonetheless, under Academic Freedom standards he is free to do so without jeopardizing his standing at Stanford University.
So we now have four examples of anti-nuclear traitors (ie politicians who oppose nuclear energy because they have a vested interested in making their countries more dependent on imported fossil fuel):
Bettino Craxi (Italy)
Ed Markey (Massachusetts, USA)
Gerhard Schröder (Germany)
Moon Jae-in (South Korea)
May their names live in infamy!
I read:
” because they have been repeatedly told that the participants in the industry cannot be trusted.”
But if you study the post http://wp.me/p1RKWc-mu it should be easy to see that Greenpeace can not be trusted.
Thank you. That’s a good place to start. That article continues to be quoted by the delusional. It is frustrating.
I have a friend who spouted something about the nuclear industry lying. I asked him to name a specific instance. I think he got all his opinions from watching “The China Syndrome” years ago and then forgot that the source was a work of fiction.
It’s pretty difficult for the nuclear industry to lie, when they can barely get a word onto the media.
Thanks for the heads-up on the lawsuit. I think I despise Jacobson even more, and I didn’t think that possible.
You may want to also look at Jacobson and Sovacool. Both claim nuclear produces way more CO2 than what it actually does. Here are some popular articles and peer-reviewed articles by Jacobson:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030/
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/ReviewSolGW09.pdf
I’m sure there’s a lawyer joke in this somewhere, but I’m too tired to think of it now.
@Ed Leaver
A fifteenth-century Italian political philosopher once observed “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. Which are you?”
Who was it that added, “But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time?”
Preach it. Folks are not nearly (or at all) angry enough at these four “people”. I’d be tempted to put Harry Reid on the list, but it’s not as clear that he sold out. In other words, where’s the evidence that he took money for his malfeasance.
@Rod Adams
Well… it’s commonly attributed to a 19th century hack litigator from small-town Illinois. Machiavelli, however, made the sentiment quite explicit when he advised The Prince, if memory serves, “…when you are eventually caught out in your deceptions and deceits, as of necessity you most assuredly will, take no futile effort of denial, for such is unseemly unto your dignity and a monumental waste of time. Rather, throw yourself upon the good charter of your accusers, appeal to their better nature, and fervently promise to reform your ways. Then continue right as you had before. You have nothing thereby to lose, as no one is going to believe you anyway.”
Academic freedom does not enable one to violate the basic rules of academic inquiry. Retractions are granted by argument in the literature, not in the courtroom, period. Jacobson’s concealment of the 1,300 GW hydro assumption is a disgrace. His reaction to critics pointing out the hydro assumption is a disgrace.
Yes, a disgrace. But each tenured faculty member is totally responsible for his own words; my only point.
And was apparently at least some help to my son who is playing the “nuclear lobbyist” part in a debate in chemistry class in which an imaginary city is deciding whether to build a nuclear or petroleum power plant. Just had an email thanking me for the link. No details on how it has gone.
At least two serious problems with this classroom scenario that I pointed out to my son. Nuclear industry lobbyists are like unicorns. And we don’t generate electricity with petroleum, until Marky finishes his work in the northeast, at least.
Still, possibly an interesting exercise and my son got the better side…
Irrespective of whether or not Harry Reid’s anti-nuclearism was paid for by some special interest or was down to Reid’s personal conviction, he would only merit my “anti-nuclear traitor” label if he acted in full knowledge that the sabotaged nuclear power would be replaced by imported fossil fuels (call me a dirty mercantilist if you want — I don’t care).
In Markey’s case that was made clear by the existence of an LNG import terminal in his district, while in Craxi’s and Schröder’s cases it was obvious because the corruption was directly financed by the gas-exporting nations who aimed to benefit.
There’s a poster on some of the blogs I follow who made an interesting claim about right-wing demagogues such as Donald Trump: he argued that their followers know they are spouting bullshit just as much as everyone else, and that they aren’t so much stupid or ignorant (as many liberals seem to believe) but more cowardly and cynical – they believe that there is no hope of creating a more just society, that ordinary people therefore have no choice but to fight over the crumbs left by the oligarchs, and that voting racists into power is therefore the rational choice because then at least their ethnicity will ensure that they don’t end up bottom of the food chain. And they will repeat the demagogue’s racist hooey to camouflage their collaboration with the oligarchs.
Coming back to nuclear energy opponents: do you think they actually believe the bullshit that they spout, or do you think they spout it in order to conceal their true reprehensible (anti-human?) viewpoints?