Gori No. 1 Nuclear Reactor to Be Permanently Shut down by 2017
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Photo: View of Gori No. 1 nuclear power plant
The Gori No. 1 nuclear reactor in Gijang-gun, Busan, the nation's oldest nuclear power plant, will be shut down permanently. The united efforts of Busan Metropolitan City, local politicians, citizens and neighboring cities, including Ulsan and Yangsan, have finally paid off. This was one of the key pledges of Busan Mayor Suh Byung-soo.
The Energy Committee under the Ministry of Trade, Industry, and Energy held a meeting at the Lotte Seoul on June 12 and decided that it would make recommendations for a permanent shutdown of Gori No. 1, whose operational life is coming to an end in 2017.
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Co. (KHNP) said it accepted the government's recommendation to shut down the Kori-1 reactor in Busan at a board of directors meeting on June 16 and will submit a plan for dismantling the reactor to the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission (NSSC) by July 2018.
The Gori No. 1 Nuclear Power Reactor will cease to operate on June 18, 2017. This is the first time for a nuclear reactor to be shut down for good in Republic of Korea after the Gori No. 1 first went into commercial operation 37 years ago.
Since the decision to permanently shut down the Gori No. 1 Nuclear Reactor was made, Busan City has made plans to develop and promote dismantling technologies for the decommissioning of nuclear power plants and related nuclear technologies in cooperation with Ulsan. The city is also pushing ahead with generating safe, economic and environmentally friendly sources of energy and developing next generation energy as alternative power source to Gori No. 1.
