South Korea to build 8 more nuclear power plants

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA - South Korea announced that it plans to build a total of 39 more power plants, including 8 nuclear ones, by 2020 to meet rising energy demands and cut its reliance on oil.

The government will spend a total of 29 trillion won (31.3 billion U.S. dollars) by 2020 to build eight more nuclear power plants, 14 coal-fired plants and 17 more power stations using liquefied natural gas by 2020, said a plan of the Commerce and Energy Ministry.

According to the ministry, South Korea will have 20 nuclear plants, 40 coal-fueled plants and 45 LNG-powered plants in operation, which generate a combined 53.6 million kilowatts of electricity annually, by the end of this year.

The ministry forecast that electricity demand will rise an average 2.5 percent annually over the next 15 years, reaching 478. 6 billion kilowatts per hour in 2020. In 2006, the electricity demand stood at 353.1 billion kw per hour.

South Korea is the world's fourth-largest oil importer. It plans to increase the proportion of electricity output fueled by nuclear power to 43.4 percent by 2020 from the current 37.8 percent. The country will reduce the share of power generated from plants using crude oil to 0.6 percent from 5.1 percent, the ministry said.