South Korea’s KHNP looks to expand to U.S. D&D market

Taking advantage of growing global demand for nuclear decontamination and decommissioning, South Korea's state-run Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power hopes to enter the U.S. nuclear power plant D&D market next year, according to a report by English news site Pulse (a service of Mael Business News Korea).

According to the report, KHNP plans to base its U.S. market entry on a research partnership with laboratories under the U.S. Department of Energy. The company is in the process of identifying joint research projects with these labs.

U.S. market: Currently, the United States has 41 nuclear power reactors that have shut down, 16 of which are undergoing decommissioning. An additional 7 reactors are in SAFSTOR, or safe storage, including (according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) Palisades, Duane Arnold, and the Crane Clean Energy Center (formerly Three Mile Island-1), which are being considered for the restart of operations.

Technological basis: According to the Pulse report, KHNP is actively investing in D&D technology development, having jointly developed 96 decommissioning technologies with the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute by 2021. The company has commercialized 58 of these technologies.

In addition, Pulse notes that KHNP is developing ICT-based convergence decommissioning technologies and is pursuing the world's first indigenous technology for commercial heavy water reactor decommissioning.

To advance its global reach, the company has established partnerships with Orano in France and Kinectrics in Canada.