North Korea’s weapons program is not the only nuclear headache
for South Korea. The country’s radioactive waste storage is
filling up as its nuclear power industry burgeons, but what
South Korea sees as its best solution — reprocessing the spent
fuel so it can be used again — faces stiff opposition from its
U.S. ally. South Korea fired up its first reactor in 1978 and
since then the resource-poor nation’s reliance on atomic energy
has steadily grown. It is now the world’s fifth-largest nuclear
energy producer, operating 23 reactors. But unlike the rapid
growth of its nuclear industry, its nuclear waste management
plan has been moving at a snail’s pace. A commission will be
launched before this summer to start public discussion on the
permanent storage of spent nuclear fuel rods, which must be
locked away for tens of thousands of years. Temporary storage
for used rods in spent fuel pools at nuclear power plants is
more than 70 percent full. Undeterred by the Fukushima nuclear
disaster or recent local safety fa