South Korea Promotes K-Decommissioning Nuclear Power Plant Decommissioning Technology Overseas

At the “2026 Nuclear Facility Decommissioning Business Forum” held on the 18th at the Westin Chosun Seoul, Seo Beom-kyung (서범경), Director of the Clean Nuclear Facility Technology Development Department at the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI), stated that given the limited scale of the domestic nuclear facility decommissioning market, it is necessary to turn attention to overseas markets.

Seo Beom-kyung said that the scale of South Korea's domestic decommissioning market is limited, so attention must be directed overseas. This requires the establishment of international standards, as well as decommissioning methods that reduce environmental burden and plans for subsequent site utilization. At the same time, emphasis must be placed on verifying K-Decommissioning technology in practical applications to ensure its performance and safety. Although technologies achieved at the R&D stage may not be directly applicable to the decommissioning of commercial nuclear power plants, their reliability must be ensured through on-site verification.

It is understood that K-Decommissioning is a “Korean-style nuclear facility dismantling (decommissioning) technology and national strategic brand” proposed by the South Korean government and the nuclear energy industry. It encompasses a complete technology system and industrial model covering everything from the cessation of operations of aging nuclear power plants, radioactive decontamination, mechanical cutting and dismantling, and safe disposal of waste, to the final environmental restoration of the site.

In order to minimize the radiation dose received by personnel, K-Decommissioning relies heavily on radiation-resistant work robots, Digital Twin simulation systems, and AI remote-controlled cutting equipment to achieve unmanned precision operations in highly hazardous environments. Due to the limited space in South Korea's domestic nuclear power plant decommissioning market (currently mainly decommissioning projects such as Gori Unit 1 and Wolsong Unit 1), the South Korean government has developed K-Decommissioning into an export-oriented industrial brand, intending to seize the global nuclear power plant decommissioning and dismantling market worth tens of billions of US dollars.