SOKOR Watchdog Approves Operation Of New Nuke Power Plant

South Korea's nuclear safety watchdog gave conditional approval Friday for the operation of a new nuclear power plant more than a year after its completion, Yonhap News Agency reported.

The Nuclear Safety and Security Commission gave the go-ahead for the 1,400-megawatt Shin-Hanul No. 1 in the coastal county of Uljin, 330 kilometers southeast of Seoul, on condition of further safety measures. The reactor was completed in April but has been off-line amid a drawn-out safety review, which began in November last year.

The Moon Jae-in administration has enhanced its safety regulations on atomic reactors as it seeks to gradually reduce the nation's reliance on nuclear energy in favor of renewable energy sources.

The watchdog's review looked into an array of safety issues, including the plant's passive autocatalytic recombiner (PAR), which is designed to prevent hydrogen explosions by reducing hydrogen concentration levels from the reactor's containment building during natural disasters.

South Korea has required the system to strengthen safety after multiple hydrogen explosions during Japan's Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster in 2011. The Shin-Hanul plant's PAR system received intense scrutiny after environmental groups claimed that its effectiveness had been overstated. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Corp. (KHNP), which built the plant, has argued that there is no problem with the system.

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