Easier when you cheat on the documentation. Sitting on two chairs at the same time is hard.

> In November 2012 it was discovered that over 5,000 small components used in five reactors at Yeonggwang Nuclear Power Plant had not been properly certified; eight suppliers had faked 60 warranties for the parts. Two reactors were shut down for component replacement, which was likely to cause power shortages in South Korea during the winter.[23] Reuters reported this as South Korea's worst nuclear crisis, highlighting a lack of transparency on nuclear safety and the dual roles of South Korea's nuclear regulators on supervision and promotion.[24] This incident followed the prosecution of five senior engineers for the coverup of a serious loss of power and cooling incident at Kori Nuclear Power Plant, which was subsequently graded at INES level 2.[23][25]

> In 2013, there was a scandal involving the use of counterfeit parts in nuclear plants and faked quality assurance certificates. In June 2013 Kori 2 and Shin Wolsong 1 were shut down, and Kori 1 and Shin Wolsong 2 ordered to remain offline, until safety-related control cabling with forged safety certificates is replaced.[26] Control cabling in the first APR-1400s under construction had to be replaced delaying construction by up to a year.[27] In October 2013 about 100 people were indicted for falsifying safety documents, including a former chief executive of Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and a vice-president of Korea Electric Power Corporation.[28]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_South_Korea

Thanks for this.

I'm curious how many scandals are involved with similar projects taking twice as long to complete in Europe. Or projects taking 4 times as long to complete in the USA? Fewer scandals? More scandals? Worse scandals? I have no idea.

We've seen similar scandals for EPRs in Flamanville and Okiluoto, forged document to fake certification of vital components of the plants, unqualified workers, lack of planning, lot of outsourcing,… it should be documented on the relevant wikipedia pages.

So...cheating is just normal around the world when building nuclear power plants regardless of how long the project takes to complete? And Korea doesn't get 5-year build times because of cheating?

Turns out the same recently surfaced for French fusion experimental reactor ITER.

https://reporterre.net/Stress-peur-pression-le-difficile-quo...

And yet this one took 17 years.