Introduction on recently revised legislations related to decommissioning of nuclear facilities in Korea

There is no permanently shutdown nuclear power reactor and decommissioned or under decommissioning nuclear power reactor, although there are 25 units of nuclear power reactors in operation and 5 units of nuclear power reactors under construction in Korea as of July 2016. There are only 2 research reactors being decommissioned since 1997. It is realized that improvement of the regulatory framework for decommissioning of nuclear facilities has been emphasized constantly from the point of view of IAEA's safety standards. IAEA published the safety requirement on decommissioning of facilities on July 2014; its title is the "Decommissioning of Facilities", General Safety Requirement Part 6. According to follow up action on the result of IAEA's Integrated Regulatory Review Service (IRRS) mission to Korea in 2011, regulatory framework for decommissioning of nuclear facilities in Korea was revised through comparing to IAEA safety standards. It was identified that items should be revised to improve the regulatory framework for decommissioning. Those are as follows: absence of legal definition of decommissioning, incomplete procedure for safety regulation after permanent shutdown, undetailed acceptance criteria for decommissioning plan, incomplete requirements for early preparing and periodic update of decommissioning plan, undetailed requirements on standard format and contents for decommissioning plan, and incomplete radiological criteria on site and building reuse after completion of decommissioning. Nuclear Safety Act related to decommissioning of nuclear facilities was revised and promulgated on 21st July 2015. As the lower statute of Nuclear Safety Act, Enforcement Decree of the Nuclear Safety Act and Enforcement Regulation of the Nuclear Safety Act were also revised and promulgated on 21 July 2015. In this paper, related to decommissioning of nuclear facilities such as nuclear power reactor, research or training reactor, and nuclear fuel cycle facility, it was introduced the main changes of the amended and promulgated Nuclear Safety Act on July 2015. It was also mentioned about the current issue in accordance with its implementation. The technical issue on the transportation and storage of radioactive waste including large components from decommissioning activity would be also considered for ensuring safe decommissioning of nuclear power plant. (author)