South Korea halts programme to gradually phase out nuclear energy: Report

South Korea has announced it will halt the gradual phasing out of nuclear power, The Spectator Index reported on Wednesday. According to the reports, officials representing South Korea’s conservative president-elect have announced the latest shift in the country’s energy policy.

Citing Won Hee-ryong, policy chief on president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol’s transition committee, The Financial Times reported that outgoing president Moon Jae-in’s push to reduce the country's nuclear power generation had increased greenhouse gas emissions and threatened to push up energy bills.

"Carbon neutrality, which the country already promised to the international community, is a path for us to take. But our climate-energy team’s tentative conclusion is that the Yoon administration needs to set new plans that are honest, realistic and responsible regarding carbon neutrality," FT quoted Won as saying on Tuesday.

However, earlier last month, Moon Jae-in had said that the country would fully use its nuclear power plants under its nuclear phase-out scheme. He called nuclear power the "main source of electricity over the next 60 years".

"Over the next 60 years, while nuclear power plants continue to operate, nuclear power plants should be fully utilized as a main base source of electricity," Moon had said.

South Korea's dependency on coal was 42% in 2019

As per Moon's nuclear phase-out scheme, the government aimed at slowly breaking away from nuclear energy by refraining from building additional plants while retiring old ones, in order to reduce the number of operational reactors to 17 by 2034.

It is worth mentioning that South Korea pledged to reduce carbon emissions by reducing its dependency on fossil fuels such as coal. As per the assessment of the International Energy Agency, South Korea's dependency on coal remained at 42% in 2019. It noted that South Korea generates only 4.7% of its power using solar and wind energy, which is less than half the global average.

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