Nuclear & Energy on EnergyNote

Nuclear & Energy on EnergyNotehttps://energynote.kr/en/categories/nuclear--energy/Recent content in Nuclear & Energy on EnergyNoteHugoen-USThu, 03 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0900Kori-1: how South Korea's first commercial reactor decommissioning is actually goinghttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/kori1-decommissioning/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 13:00:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/kori1-decommissioning/<p>On the coast of Gijang County, at the eastern edge of Busan, a 587 MW (gross) Westinghouse pressurized-water reactor that made electricity for 39 years is being taken apart. Kori-1 began commercial operation in April 1978 as South Korea’s first commercial nuclear power plant, was permanently shut down in June 2017, and in June 2025 became the first Korean reactor to receive a decommissioning approval. In November 2025 the first contractors moved in.</p>Designing for 100,000 years: the world's deep repositories, from Onkalo to Korea's Gyeongjuhttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/world-repositories/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/world-repositories/<p>The Great Pyramid of Giza has stood for about 4,600 years, which makes it one of the oldest large structures humans have built. A handful of countries are now building facilities that must stay safe for <strong>more than 100,000 years</strong>: deep geological repositories for high-level radioactive waste, mostly spent nuclear fuel. Engineering a guarantee longer than recorded history is hard enough.</p>Korea is asking whether to build more reactors — what the September 2026 public deliberation is really abouthttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/new-reactor-public-debate/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/new-reactor-public-debate/<p>On August 20, 2026, in a National Assembly office building in Seoul, the committee drafting Korea’s next 15-year power plan put a new number on the table. Peak electricity demand in 2040 is now forecast at <strong>158.4–165.0 GW</strong>, up from the 131.8–138.2 GW the same committee had forecast in April. The gap is about 27 GW, the output of nineteen large reactors of 1.4 GW each, and it appeared in four months.</p>Korea's SMR program in 2026: where i-SMR really stands, and what the new SMR Act changeshttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/korean-smr-ismr-status/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/korean-smr-ismr-status/<p>On September 1, 2026, Seoul National University’s Nuclear Policy Center and GS Energy, a private Korean power company, hosted a policy forum on building a “private-sector-led SMR business model.” SK Innovation presented a Korea–US cooperation model built around TerraPower. POSCO Holdings said it wants small modular reactors to supply the 1.7 GW of electricity its hydrogen-based steelmaking will need.</p>Reprocess or bury? The world map of spent-fuel policy, and why Korea can't decidehttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/reprocessing-vs-disposal/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/reprocessing-vs-disposal/<p>Every fuel assembly that leaves a reactor core has to go somewhere, and for seventy years the nuclear world has argued over where.</p> <p>There are only two real destinations. <strong>Reprocessing</strong> dissolves the fuel and pulls out the uranium and plutonium that can be used again. <strong>Direct disposal</strong> leaves the fuel as it is, seals it in a container and buries it in deep rock.</p>The 2026 SMR licensing map: who is actually where, from design approval to first powerhttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/smr-global-status-2026/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/smr-global-status-2026/<p>Ask “who leads in SMRs” and you get three answers: NuScale, the only SMR developer with an NRC design approval; China, which is building the world’s first land-based commercial SMR; or, counting hyperscaler contracts, Oklo and Kairos. None of the three is wrong. They are measured with different rulers.</p>The real bottleneck for AI data centers is the wire, not the power plant — Korea's 1.9% approval rate and the US interconnection queuehttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/datacenter-grid-bottleneck/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/datacenter-grid-bottleneck/<p>1.9 percent. Through March 2026, developers had filed 522 grid impact assessments for data centers in the Seoul metropolitan area, asking for a combined 33,592 MW. Ten of them had received a final “supply available” decision, according to a July 2026 tally by CBRE Korea, the real estate services firm.</p>Three years of Fukushima treated-water discharge: the numbers, and how South Korea watches from next doorhttps://energynote.kr/en/posts/fukushima-discharge-3years/Thu, 03 Sep 2026 12:30:00 +0900https://energynote.kr/en/posts/fukushima-discharge-3years/<p>172,729 metric tons. That is how much water left the Fukushima Daiichi plant for the Pacific in 22 batches between August 24, 2023 and August 17, 2026. The 23rd batch — the fifth of Japan’s fiscal 2026 — began on August 31 and is scheduled to add about 7,800 tons by September 18.</p>