South Korean Nuclear Update

A senior government official in South Korea is predicting that the nation will have to depend on nuclear energy for about 60 percent of its energy in the next 30 years:

"If we cannot find a new energy source to replace today’s fossil fuels, we have no choice but to raise our reliance on nuclear power," MOST director general Kim Young-shik said.

In the wake of the energy crisis in the 1970s, Korea, which does not produce a drop of petroleum, started tilting toward a reliance on nuclear power as a secure energy.

As the world's sixth-largest nuclear power producing nation, it now operates 19 nuclear reactors, which combine to provide roughly 40 percent of its total electricity needs.

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