P and T research program in Korea

The national energy demand is taking a sharp rise on account of the rapid growth of economy in Korea. Unfortunately, Korea has not much choice of alternative energy a promising option for Korea. For instance, eleven nuclear plants are in operation and 7 plants are under construction. Several plants are in planning stage. KAERI has played a major role in the design and operation of the plants in Korea. The spent fuel issue is calling for acute attention nationwide as the number of plants increases. Korea is actively seeking a technical solution to that problem surfacing on the horizon. A preliminary conceptual study on the P and T technology was performed from 1992 to 1996 and the future research directions were derived from that study. Because of the situation Korea is facing with, one of the major technical guidelines is that the P and T technology should be developed in compliance with the NPT. The concept of an accelerator driven subcritical system was found to be the most favorable option according to the conceptual study. KAERI set up an ambitious accelerator driven system development program for next 10 years. Key elementary technologies for a high current accelerator and a subcritical system are scheduled to be developed and experimented for the first five years (1997-2001). For the second five years (2002-2006), the accelerator program is pushed for the completion to parameters of 1 GeV, 20mA with capability to drive a subcritical system. For the subcritical system, a detail design study is to be performed and a small mockup system is to be built for bench scale test purpose