Happiness is a closed fuel cycle.
The Grand National Party will ask President Lee Myung-bak to discuss with President Obama the relaxing of a 1991 bilateral agreement on atomic power that currently bans Korea from reprocessing nuclear fuel, reports the Kookmin Ilbo and others.
GNP lawmaker Choi Ku-shik, the chairman of the party’s sixth policy coordination committee, said the party policy committee had decided it would be nice for President Lee to bring up amending the nuclear agreement when he meets with President Obama on Tuesday. Kim Sung-jo, the chairman of the party policy committee, plans to tell the government this during a high-ranking meeting of party and government officials on Monday.
As for why Korea should be able to reprocess nuclear fuel, the GNP policy committee is citing nuclear sovereignty and, touchingly, the environment. Choi said even in 1991, there were complaints that Korea had gone too far in giving up its nuclear sovereignty, and that the atomic agreement should be relaxed to a level appropriate to Korea’s nuclear sovereignty.
Noting that Korea’s storage site for spent fuel would fill up by 2017, Choi said if Korea reprocesses its fuel rods, it could minimize waste, which would be good for the environment.
Oh, and it would save money — Korea currently imports all of its nuclear fuel.
Not everyone has balls of steel, though. Some are concerned that if Korea were to start reprocessing fuel, it could cause unnecessary tensions with North Korea, China and Japan. In particular, North Korea — currently getting international criticism for reprocessing nuclear fuel — would protest plans by South Korea to reprocess fuel. Why South Korea should care what North Korea (nuclear weapon state, reprocesses nuclear fuel), China (nuclear weapon state with plutonium production plants) and Japan (reprocessing state) think, the Kukmin Ilbo does not say.
Nevertheless, Choi answered critics by saying that while North Korea is a country conducting military nuclear tests, South Korea is discussing only peaceful uses (wink wink, nudge nudge). Bringing up the fact that Japan is reprocessing nuclear fuel, he stressed that Korea is an international nuclear model student if you don’t count its nuclear weapons program of the 1970s.
Marmot’s Note: Unless a deal is struck to denuclearize North Korea — which is unlikely, IMHO — I think it’s only a matter of time before South Korea goes nuclear.
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South Korea still super clean and healthy, even with all of it’s other industries – what could go wrong with a nuclear fuel program? (/sarcasm)
Sure, why not? It’s generally a great idea to put nuclear weapons into the hands of unstable nations.
Perhaps it’s time to hand over the mantle of maintaining the peace in the in the Pacific rim to ROK along with all the responsibilities that go along with it – shouldering all the costs of self defence, representing the interests of Japan in the region, disarming NK.
hey mizar, this bud’s for you: http://www.rjkoehler.com/2009/.....ent-244707
allow me to inject about another nuclear rogue state, Iran.
US network tv has been on a massive, blunt propaganda rage the past week or so, depicting Iran and Iranians as ‘our friends’.
I already knew today’s election would be, essentially ‘fixed’.
Iran state tv reports 69% victory for the Nazi-Persian, and a state lock down, similar to the Bookhanese and the fascist People’s Republic of China.
How did I know?
Iran is not ready.
You can show us young Iranians disobeying clerics and drinking beer on tv, but Iran is not ready.
They are doing the same thing Park Junghee did versus Kim Daejung, except they lied more about the final outcome. 69%, ran out of ballots, already counted all the paper ballots, etc.
I wonder what the motive was behind US network tv in the massive propaganda rage for US tv viewers. Some Iranians truly hate America and should be barred from US entry.
and the unspoken truth is Iran was supplying militants in Iraq to kill US soldiers, in tandem with Syria.
Essentially what the Chinese did in the Vietnam War.
The threat of Japanese + ROK going nuclear is probably the only way to shake the Chinese out of their “status quo ante at all costs” fetish.
Of course it’s just a matter of time before South Korea goes nuclear.
Everyone has a gun – and eventually a better gun – and everyone will either have a better gun, the nuclear weapon, or the weapon will be used to kill the those trying to get it. We can’t stop the spread of nuclear weapons without war, it’s a temporary state until the nuclear war begins.
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