South Korea has some very serious Nuclear problems ahead.

Some of you may recall this story having broke awhile back in a much smaller, much less threatening sounding version. At the time, the story was presented to the world as more of an administrative issue than anything to be worried about in safety concerns. Especially with the Fukushima calamity still fresh in everyone's mind, it was reassuring to hear.

Unfortunately, it wasn't near accurate. Here is how it's developed and grown into a potential nightmare.

The scandal started after an anonymous tip in April prompted an official investigation. Prosecutors have indicted some officials at a testing company on charges of faking safety tests on parts for the plants. Some officials at the state-financed company that designs nuclear power plants were also indicted on charges of taking bribes from testing company officials in return for accepting those substandard parts.

These parts went into 14 of 23 Nuclear Power stations around South Korea. Not a very large nation by landmass to start with, it's a serious situation to say the least. However, initial reports had indicated non-essential systems were involved. That's now changed.

The country has already shuttered three of those reactors temporarily because the questionable parts used there were important, and more closings could follow as investigators wade through more than 120,000 test certificates filed over the past decade to see if more may have been falsified.

In a further indication of the possible breadth of the problems, prosecutors recently raided the offices of 30 more suppliers suspected of also providing parts with faked quality certificates and said they would investigate other testing companies.

A company that was supposed to test reactor parts skipped portions of the exams, doctored test data or even issued safety certificates for parts that failed its tests, according to government investigators.

Among the parts that failed the tests were cables used to send signals to activate emergency measures in an accident.

Source (Emphasis by me)

Believe it or not, the full 2 page story is worse than the outtakes I can supply by space and policy. It's a crisis, in my choice of words. One section discusses hundreds of thousands in cash being pulled from the home of one of Korea Hyrdo's officials. In that case, they believe the money was straight bribery for parts contracts with a major supplier and not directly tied to the false inspection and potentially faulty parts. It shows the depth of the problem they're facing, however.

Officials of the same Korea Hydro are charged with ordering the falsification of some of this material. Korea Hydro is a subsidiary of the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) which, unlike Japan more diverse industry, is the sole owner and operator of all the plants in the nation. So, a scandal at one is a scandal for all. It's a true mess.

I hope South Korea can get on top of this and quickly. They took the Nuclear road for power to the point of being near exclusive in the nation's needs. They'd even been looking to start heavily marketing export and foreign contract work to build and service Nuclear plants abroad, by details here. Now? South Korea's prime minister has been said to compare their industry to the Mafia.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


That is quite a punch in the gut for the Nuclear Industry. Way to cosy a relationship between the various parties.

reply to post by Wrabbit2000


Bribery. See, right there they're doing it wrong. They should do it the way we do it here in the US and capture the regulatory agencies instead. Jeez. How primitive....

South Korea has some very serious Nuclear problems ahead

At first I thought the title was referring to North Korean nukes and I thought to myself "that's not too much of a worry, all they ever do is saber-rattle". But these safety issues are a major concern. Hope they deal with it swiftly and promptly.

I wonder, Brer Wrabbit, if the Korean mafia has had a hand in this. It isn't often something that you hear about, but organized crime is a big player in many aspects of Korean business...