A year after the first 16 drums of waste was placed in Asia's first underground repository for low- and intermediate-level waste radioactive waste repository in the Gyeongju Province in South Korea, the country's Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy has approved of the repository's second construction phase, which will involve a surface-level facility intended to hold up to 125,000 drums of waste.
KORAD, formerly the Korea Radioactive Waste Agency, must still seek approval from the Nuclear Safety and Security Commission, the country's regulatory agency for civil nuclear power, the World Nuclear Association reported. But preliminary construction work will begin soon, nonetheless, while full-scale construction is temporarily being held at bay.
The new facility is expected to cover an area of about 400,000 square feet. It will be part of a facility that will eventually hold 800,000 drums of waste, including 100,000 in six underground silos (131-feet high by 80-feet in diameter) that began to receive drums in July 2015 after eight years of construction, which lasted from 2006 to 2014.
Low-level waste generally includes clothing and items like mop heads, sponges, and tools used at a nuclear power plant, while intermediate-level waste usually involves liquid chemicals, metals and some water that have absorbed radioactivity.