사용후핵연료 관리 정책의 딜레마와 정책의 표류 - 정책변화와 사용후핵연료 관련 용어 및 개념 변화의 상관관계 -

The Korean government established a radial waste management policy in 1986 and made many attempts to secure disposal facilities. However, 30 years have passed since the government failed to secure interim storage facilities and disposal facilities for spent nuclear fuel. Most of the OECD members, including the IAEA, define interim storage facilities as those for cooling and storing spent nuclear fuels before reprocessing or permanent disposal. However, the Korean government uses several terms, such as temporary storage, pre-classified storage facilities, short-term storage facilities, and nuclear fuel storage facilities, separating them from interim storage. This is because the government enacted a law to prevent the construction of spent nuclear fuel related facilities in the area while constructing a LILW disposal facility. The categories of spent nuclear fuel related facilities include interim storage facilities, permanent disposal facilities, and management facilities for them. If the dry storage facility at Wolseong Nuclear Power Station is included in an interim storage facility, it is against the law. This is why the government has created new terms such as temporary storage and short-term storage to justify that it is not a interim storage facility. However, the government's actions have resulted in the loss of public trust. Furthermore, this action led to the dilemma of not being able to decide any policies afterwards. What the government chose was to create new terms to avoid the problems faced rather than fundamentally solving them. The government created new terms by changing policies, but they eventually became obstacles to government policy decisions. In the end, the terms created by the government have caused policy drift. The government established a high-level radioactive waste management plan through public discussion in 2016, but failed to form a national consensus. The need for a complete revision of the high-level radioactive waste management plan has been made since 2017, and discussions on it will begin after August 2018. But for this debate to work properly and to end policy drift, the definition of the term must be clear and simplified. And meta policy decisions on reprocessing and disposal of spent nuclear fuel must be preceded.