South Korea on Monday said it plans to spend 610 billion won ($522 million) by 2030 to develop core technology for decommissioning nuclear power plants.

The Atomic Energy Promotion Committee, chaired by Prime Minister Hwang Woo-yea, held a meeting and confirmed plans for the project on nuclear decommissioning, in light of the government’s decision to permanently shut down the country’s first nuclear power plant Gori No. 1 last June.

“Korea has competence in terms of building and operating a nuclear power plant. Now we must focus on decommissioning and managing the reactors after they have been shut down,” said Hwang.

Hwang urged officials to also push for commercially decommissioning reactors overseas, which the government estimates to be about 440 trillion won in market size. But the primary focus for now, he said, would be to procure the technology to safely shut down Gori No. 1.

(minsikyoon@heradlcrop.com)