IAEA ministerial conference in Incheon, October 27 to 29: what Korea wants to show, and what the meeting will not decide
Eleven days from now, on October 27, nuclear ministers from IAEA member states will sit down at Songdo ConvensiA, a …
Nuclear energy and radiation,
explained from inside Korea
SMR licensing, Fukushima water monitoring, Korea's nuclear program and everyday radiation questions — written by a Korean author trained in nuclear engineering and radiation science, with the numbers and their dates.
Latest posts
What ALARA is, and why the NRC wants to change it
At the dentist, before the X-ray, the assistant drapes a heavy lead apron over your chest and neck. The dose from one …
Korean builders are lining up to build Western SMRs, but few contracts are signed
On September 29, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued the first US construction permit for a GE Vernova Hitachi …
Why four Korean reactors are idle: expired licenses, a twice-deferred accident plan, and Wolsong 2 on November 1
KRW 1,891.9 billion, about $1.4 billion. That is the value of the electricity four Korean reactors could not sell …
i-SMR licensing tracker, October 2026: where Korea's standard design approval stands
Seven months. That is how long Korea’s first small modular reactor design has been in front of its regulator, and …
Will a Korean reactor be built in America? What the US-Korea nuclear package says, and what it does not
Eight reactors and up to $120 billion make the headline. The number that matters more is zero: as of October 2, 2026, no …
How Korea's reactors are designed for earthquakes and tsunamis: the numbers, site by site
At 8:32 p.m. on September 12, 2016, a magnitude-5.8 earthquake, the strongest ever instrumentally measured in South …
Thirty years to a repository: how Korea sited, fought over and finally built Gyeongju
On May 13, 2026, officials in white hard hats cut a ribbon at a coastal site in Gyeongju, marking the finish of a second …
How Korea's electricity market actually works: KPX, the system marginal price, and why KEPCO lost money
In December 2022, the hourly price at which Korea’s power generators were paid averaged KRW 267.63 per …
Barakah at five years: the UAE's Korean-built reactors, by the numbers
Drive 53 km west of Ruwais on the UAE’s Gulf coast and four reactor domes rise out of the desert together. All …
Korea's power grid explained: where the electricity is, where the demand is, and the HVDC lines meant to connect them
Anyone sizing up South Korea for a data center or a factory ends up with two maps, and the first shows where electricity …
How Korea decides whether a 40-year-old reactor keeps running: the continued-operation process, step by step
On September 11, 2026, Hanbit unit 2 on Korea’s west coast reached the end of its 40-year operating license and …
How a nuclear reactor gets licensed in Korea: from site to standard design approval to first power
Suppose you read that Korea “approved” a reactor this week. Five different things could have happened: a …
[In-depth] A shut-down reactor still needs power — the record of Zaporizhzhia's off-site power losses
On August 20, 2026, the last power line still feeding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, on the left bank of the Dnipro …
Why is a nuclear reactor blue? Cherenkov radiation, explained
A deep pool lit from below, as if someone had switched on a blue fluorescent lamp under the water: it is the stock …
What is the APR1400? Korea's export reactor explained — design, safety systems, track record and cost
Eight APR1400 reactors are selling electricity as of September 2026, four in South Korea and four at Barakah in the …
Korea's spent nuclear fuel in 2026: pool saturation dates, dry storage plans and the road to a repository
Every fuel assembly ever discharged from a South Korean power reactor is still where it was unloaded: in a pool or a dry …
Korea's nuclear reactor fleet, site by site — every unit, its type, age and status (September 2026)
On September 11, 2026, the 40-year operating license of Hanbit unit 2, a Westinghouse reactor on Korea’s southwest …
Would a radioactive spider bite give you powers? A radiation-protection scorecard for Spider-Man
Spider-Man: Brand New Day swept Korean theaters in the summer of 2026, passing 8 million admissions and becoming the …
Superhero radiation scorecard — Hulk, Fantastic Four, Daredevil and friends graded by a radiation-protection yardstick
Superheroes are everywhere this season. In May, Netflix released The WONDERfools, a comedy about ordinary neighborhood …
Korea's nuclear exports, project by project — Barakah, Dukovany and what comes next
Sixteen months. That is how long the European Commission spent reviewing the Dukovany contract before deciding, on June …
Korea's nuclear decommissioning market — what the 500-trillion-won headline actually means
In June 2025, Korea’s nuclear regulator approved the dismantling of a commercial power reactor for the first time. …
How Korea's electricity bill works — and what the nuclear share has to do with it
On August 2, 2026, the city of Yangsan in Korea’s southeast recorded 42.5°C, the highest temperature ever observed …
[In-depth] Korea's nuclear industry map — who does what, from uranium to decommissioning
On September 4, Korea’s Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC, the nuclear regulator) approved the restart …
Kori-1: how South Korea's first commercial reactor decommissioning is actually going
On the coast of Gijang County, at the eastern edge of Busan, a 587 MW (gross) Westinghouse pressurized-water reactor …
Three years of Fukushima treated-water discharge: the numbers, and how South Korea watches from next door
172,729 metric tons. That is how much water left the Fukushima Daiichi plant for the Pacific in 22 batches between …
The banana equivalent dose is a meme, not a measurement — here's why it still works
Scroll through the comments under any radiation story and someone will post it: “One CT scan = 70,000 …
The 2026 SMR licensing map: who is actually where, from design approval to first power
Who actually leads in SMRs? Ask three people and you get three answers: NuScale, the only SMR developer with an NRC …
Reprocess or bury? The world map of spent-fuel policy, and why Korea can't decide
Every fuel assembly that leaves a reactor core has to go somewhere, and for seventy years the nuclear world has argued …
Oklo's PJM withdrawal and Korea's 1.9% data center approvals: the grid is the bottleneck
1.9 percent. That is the share of Seoul-area data center power applications that had cleared final approval through …
Korea's SMR program in 2026: where i-SMR really stands, and what the new SMR Act changes
Try to follow Korea’s SMR program for even a week and you run into a law, a regulator’s roadmap, a candidate …
Korea is asking whether to build more reactors — what the September 2026 public deliberation is really about
Nineteen reactors’ worth of extra electricity demand, and it showed up on a single forecast in four months. On …
How much radiation did the Artemis II crew get in ten days? The math from the Artemis I mannequins
On April 6, 2026 (US Eastern time), the Orion spacecraft passed a point 406,771 km (about 252,750 miles) from Earth — …
Designing for 100,000 years: the world's deep repositories, from Onkalo to Korea's Gyeongju
The Great Pyramid of Giza has stood for about 4,600 years, which makes it one of the oldest large structures humans have …
Are radon spas good for you? Misasa, Bad Gastein and the hormesis debate, with the actual numbers
44,000. That is the number of becquerels of radon in one cubic meter of air inside the Heilstollen, the “healing …