Antinuclear

South Korea’s election may mean a grinding halt to that country’s nuclear plans

Nuclear Power Rises As Campaign Issue, WSJ,  March 13, 2012, Next month’s parliamentary election may influence the direction of many parts of the South Korean economy, but few sectors appear to stand quite as much at a fork in the road as the country’s nuclear power industry.

The leader of the main opposition Democratic United Party, Han Myeong-sook, has said that if control of the parliament passes to her party, it will develop policies to lower South Korea’s use of nuclear energy……… There’s more at stake for South Korea in the nuclear power debate than just its own energy needs. In late 2009, South Korea’s main utility and a group of construction firms won a deal to build nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates, the first time it had joined the ranks of the U.S., France, Japan and others as an exporter of nuclear technology.

(South Korea has since entered competitions for nuclear-plant construction contracts in Finland, Turkey and Vietnam but no deals have been made.)….. signs that nuclear power-related companies are on guard for a DUP victory that would alter the industry’s direction. “The industry has been making very positive investments and hiring during the last year,” he said. “But that has been slowing down as they anticipate a long, dark age.”  http://blogs.wsj.com/korearealtime/2012/03/13/nuclear-power-rises-as-campaign-issue/

March 13, 2012 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized