South Korea Ranks Fourth in the World In Nuclear Energy Use

I don’t see any issue with the high dependence on nuclear power as long as the reactors are safely designed unlike what we saw at Fukushima:

South Korea’s reliance on nuclear power is the fourth-largest in the world while its use of renewable energy ranks near the bottom, a report showed Monday.

According to the World Factbook by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, Asia’s fourth-largest economy possessed a total installed power generation capacity of 94 gigawatts (GW), placing it 13th in the world. The country’s annual electricity generation output stood at 517 terawatts (TW) placing it 11th, while it ranked 10th in terms of consumption at 482TW.

The numbers represent power generated by thermal and nuclear power plants, hydro-electric dams and renewable energy sources.

The European Union’s combined installed power capacity stood at 9,071GW, with China and the United States ranking second and third with capacitites of 1,505GW and 1,063GW each.

South Korea’s power capacity and consumption of electricity is roughly on par with its global GDP ranking that stood at 13th last year.

On the other hand, the country’s reliance on atomic power to meet its energy requirements was high.

The country receives 26.8 percent of all power from nuclear reactors, placing it behind France, Armenia and Belgium. France received 48.8 percent of its power from reactors with numbers for Armenia and Belgium standing at 34.3 percent and 30.4 percent, respectively. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.