Jeong Jeonghwa, Chair of the Used Nuclear Fuel Review Committee, Resigns... "Responsibility for Half-hearted Public Debate"

Jeong Jeong-hwa, Chairperson of the Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Policy Review Committee. (Photo by Yonhap News)

[Asia Economy Reporter Moon Chaeseok] Jung Jeonghwa, chairman of the Spent Nuclear Fuel Management Policy Review Committee, has announced his sudden intention to resign.

Chairman Jung will hold a press conference on the 26th to officially confirm his resignation.

The government’s public discussion process for establishing spent nuclear fuel management policies, which has been facing difficulties, is expected to become even more complicated.

Chairman Jung stated, "Over the past year, I have made efforts to encourage participation and communication with the anti-nuclear civil society, but I was unable to overcome the wall of distrust toward the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy. I have decided to resign as chairman, taking responsibility for the situation where proper opinion gathering became difficult due to the failure to draw in civil society participation."

He added, "In a situation where the basic principles of public discussion?deliberation, representativeness, fairness, and acceptability?can no longer be guaranteed, I judged that I could no longer fulfill the role of chairman. I apologize to the public for stepping down after wasting much time and budget over the past year without reaching any conclusion."

Chairman Jung expressed the difficulties in the public discussion process for the mid- to long-term spent nuclear fuel management plan.

He explained, "The first comprehensive discussion meeting of the city participation group for nationwide opinion gathering was scheduled to be held from the 19th to the 21st, but it was postponed to next month due to the failure to form an expert panel. Also, the first discussion meeting faced difficulties in achieving balanced debate as the anti-nuclear civil society did not participate. Following the Park Geun-hye administration, we are again facing a half-hearted public discussion, making it unavoidable to 're-review the review'."

Chairman Jung also pointed out that the regional implementation body, which oversees opinion gathering on whether to expand the MACSTOR temporary storage facility for spent nuclear fuel at the Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant in Gyeongju, is repeatedly disrupted due to issues of representativeness and fairness in committee composition.

The residents’ briefing sessions in Yangnam-myeon, Gyeongju, where the nuclear power plant is located, were canceled three times due to intense conflicts between residents for and against the expansion. He also noted that the recruitment of citizen participants is suffering from fairness controversies.

Accordingly, he stated that the regional comprehensive discussion meeting scheduled for next month is also in a state where fair opinion gathering is impossible due to the failure to secure balanced discussants from both pro and con camps.

Chairman Jung said, "Spent nuclear fuel management policy is a difficult issue faced by all nuclear-operating countries that cannot move forward without communication with stakeholders and social consensus formation. However, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has failed to dispel the anti-nuclear camp’s concerns that it is only rushing to expand the MACSTOR at Wolseong Nuclear Power Plant, which is nearing saturation, and must bear primary responsibility for failing to gain trust through more active and sincere communication."

He then made several proposals for the successful re-public discussion.

First, he said the committee should be reorganized into a discussion structure that comprehensively includes stakeholders related to spent nuclear fuel, including the anti-nuclear civil society.

He also suggested that the process should be promoted not by the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which oversees nuclear industry policy, but by an organization directly under the President or the Prime Minister to ensure neutrality and fairness.

Furthermore, he emphasized that the anti-nuclear civil society should approach the re-public discussion with a serious and sincere attitude to seek reasonable alternatives for the safety of the people and future generations.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.