South Korea

Hyung-jin Son, an activist from ‘Green Korea’, expressed his views on South Korea's energy policies. 

1. What is the plan of the South Korean government regarding future energy sources?

‘Green Growth Korea’ plan
Looking into the ‘Green Growth Korea’ plan, which was released in 2008, the government is aiming to increase the use renewable energies. In this report, the government notes that it plans to expand the diffusion of renewable energy, as future energy source and it plans to help foster research and development. The goal is to raise the diffusion rate to 11 percent by 2030 (the diffusion rate was 2.24 percent in 2006.)

Conversion to post-petroleum society
Based on the above report, the South Korean government plans to reduce its dependence on oil from 44.4 precent (in 2005) to 33 percent by 2030. To achieve this goal, the government plans to increase its use of natural gas. 

There are plans to expand CNG buses, introduce LNG trucks, develop technologies for a highly-efficient LPG car, and more. To develop and spread the technology of next generation cars, the government will mainly focus on the technology of BTL (Biomass-to-Liquid), CTL (Coal-to-Liquid), BTL (Biomass-to-Liquid). 

Selection of 9 concentrating fields
In briefing entited ‘Strategy for Green Energy Industry Development,' the South Korean government noted its decision invest three billion Korean won in nine fields of concentration including sunlight, wind power, LED, electricity IT, hydrogen fuel cell, CTL/GTL, Storage of CCS energy, and IGCC.

2. Do you think it is the best solution?

There are many problems with the government’s national energy plan. If these plans are followed, our energy sources will be petroleum (33%), and nuclear energy (27.8%), coal (15.7%), LNG (12%), and renewable energy (11.5%). The difference between this plan and the current energy is that the use of fossil fuels will decrease from 81.6 percent to 60.7 percent. The use of nuclear and renewable energies will increase as well. The proportion of nuclear energy in the mix will double from 15.9 percent (2006) to 27.8 percent (2030).

The problem with this energy policy is that the dependence on oil is still too high. It is necessary for the government to consider that we import 100 percent of our oil 100 percent, especially when calculating the oil peak and planning to prevent energy shortages.We should simply follow the material from DOE/EIA of United States, regarding the peak oil as 2037.

Also, the government has very positive view of the stability of the energy supply chain and the government insists that there will not be an imbalance of supply and demand. However, considering that the world’s oil price soared to $147.27 USD last year, the supply of oil is already not stable in the world society. Thus, I argue that the government should reflect this international situation more carefully in its plan.

My next concern is about nuclear energy. The plan of the South Korean government is to supply 41 precent of its energy from nuclear power and to accomplish this, it will build 12 more nuclear energy plant by 2022. This is very dangerous idea. In this situation, we have never  dealt with that much atomic waste.

The government is categorizing nuclear energy as clean energy only because it emits less green house gases. Considering the process of exploiting uranium and building plants, the effect of lessening greenhouse gases is suspicious. There is also the possibility of radiation leakage due to natural disasters or accidents. In addition, the cost and social conflict for building nuclear plant will not be easily solved, as the government has planned.

3. If not, what do you suggest?

The most important mistake of government plan is that it does not have any measures for managing energy demand. However, the basic attitude about energy issue is to decrease the use of energy.

Last December, the European Union agreed to ‘EU Climate Change/Engergy Package(20-20-20). The main part of the agreement was to lessen the energy use by 20 percent, in comparison to 1990 levels; to increase the use of renewable energy by 20 percent; and, to reduce CO2 emission by 20 percent. This means that EU considered managing the demand-side as the alternative plan for climate change and energy crisis.

The South Korean government also has to freeze the energy use at this point and create a policy to reduce it. Especially, the expansion of nuclear energy should be reconsidered, in that it enforces the inefficient suppy-demand system of energy.

4. What do you think about the security concern derived from nuclear energy, such as NNPT, regarding North Korea?

I will quote the public statement of ‘Green Korea’ on this issue.

“The Argument on nuclear fuel reprocessing which has bigger cost than benefit”
by Green Korea, July 7, 2009

Last week, Myung-hwan Yoo, the minister of Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the necessity of nuclear fuel reprocessing mentioning about peaceful usage of nuclear energy and yesterday(July 6, 2009) MOFAT and related ministries defined their plan to revise Korea-USA Nuclear Agreement, and Jin Park, the representative of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Unification Committee announced to compose ‘Diplomatic Strategy for Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy(tentative name)’....

Nuclear fuel reprocessing is inappropriate for mainly two reasons.

First is the safety problem. The safety of fast-breeder reactor is not proved yet, and still it is remaining on the step of laboratory nuclear reactor. Some people in this industry say that the realization will be in the very near future, but this is unreliable self-interest. This has very low possibility just like nuclear fusion.

Second, South Korea’s nuclear fuel reprocessing will make North Korea to formulate its possession of nuclear weapon regarding the East Asia’s dynamics. This will also promote Japan’s nuclear armament. Thus, South Korea’s nuclear fuel reprocessing will trample the contemporaries’ hope to secure peace.