Conservative candidate for president of South Korea, Yoon Suk-yeol, said today that if elected he will abandon the nuclear energy exit policy enacted by the current presidential administration, and will use nuclear power to reduce the portion of energy generated by fossil fuels thus reducing national emissions of particulate matter into the atmosphere by more than 30 percent. Yoon, candidate of the National Power Party (PPP), currently in the opposition, presented his program on the environment and agriculture today. The conservative politician said he wanted to rapidly reduce the percentage of energy produced from coal and other fossil sources from 60 to 40 percent of the total, expanding the shares of the national energy mix reserved for nuclear and renewables. Yoon also pledged to reduce the maximum operating limit of coal-fired thermoelectric plants, from the current 80 to 50 percent.
A poll released by the Realmeter polling company ahead of South Korea’s upcoming presidential election next March gives conservative Yoon Suk-yeol an advantage of more than five percentage points over his Social Democrat opponent Lee Jae-myung. The latest survey gives Yoon 42 per cent of the votes, while Lee’s approval would be stable at 36.8 per cent. The poll involved 3,046 voters consulted between January 16 and 21 last year. In recent days, Yoon presented a vast plan for the “reconstruction” of Seoul, which provides for a functional reorganization of the spaces and the relocation of the main roads and railways underground. The proposal, presented at a press conference, includes four “pillars” and nine detailed commitments for the South Korean capital, including the construction of 500,000 new housing units to fuel Seoul’s growth as a global financial and technology hub. .