• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
• /
• v.9 no.1
• /
• pp.155-182
• /
• 1999

중국은 급속한 경제성장으로 인해서 에너지의 소비량이 급증하였으며 이는 석탄의 급증을 동시에 유발하였다 이러한 석탄 사용의 증가는 국내적으로는 대기오염의 악화를 초래하고 있으며, 국외적으로는 산성비의 원인이 되고 있다. 한편 수질오염도 심각하며 주원인으로는 도시폐기물이 약 40%, 산업폐기물로 인한 수질오염이 60% (1981 - 1995)을 차지하고 있으며 폐수처리물은 산업폐수가 77%이나 도시의 폐수처리는 7%에 불과한 것으로 알려져 있다. 이러한 환경오염으로 인한 총 사회적 비용은 1995년도의 경우 GDP의 8%로 추정되고 있으나 중국의 경제 성장이 현재와 같이 지속되고 청정생산, 에너지 효율 향상이 되면 2020년에 '95년의 사회적 비용의 75% 수준까지 저감시킬 것으로 세계은행은 예상하고 있다. (세계은행, 1998) 중국이 환경문제를 해결하기 위해서는 우선 에너지 효율 향상과 에너지 공급원의 다양화를 추진하는 것이며, 산업 보일러와 로에서 발생하는 배출량에 대한 저감에 대해서 노력해야 한다. 특히 수질오염의 방지를 위해서도 거의 무방지 지대인 중소기업에 대한 폐수처리 시설의 확충도 시급한 실정이며 자동차와 관련한 대기오염의 방지도 중요하다. 특히 시장 기능의 활성화를 유도하기 위해서는 공기업에게도 철저한 환경규제를 적용시켜야 하며, 환경비용의 내부화를 기하기 위해서 가격제도의 도입과 국제 무역의 자유화를 조기에 추진함으로서 환경기반산업을 육성할 수 있을 것이며 최소한 GDP의 1% 정도 되는 환경투자가 필요하다고 본다.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.341-369
• /
• 2012

Population aging has been one of the serious problems in Korea. Aging can affect social and economic features including energy consumption. This paper analyzed how population aging makes an effect on residential electricity demand. Yearly data from 1965 to 2010 were collected. The long and short-run demands for residential electricity were estimated with respect to Korean aging index. The results show that population aging reduces residential electricity demands in the short run significantly, but the effect decreases in the long run. However, population aging still negatively affects residential electricity consumption in long run. If population keep aging as Korean government expected, then the residential electricity demand per capita will grow less than 3%.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
• /
• v.47 no.5
• /
• pp.551-561
• /
• 2014

Natural gas is the world's fastest-growing fossil fuel, with consumption increasing from 113 trillion cubic feet(Tcf) in 2010 to 185Tcf in 2040. While conventional natural gas streams from the earth relatively easily, unconventional gas finds are more difficult to develop and more costly to produce. Right now, there are six main types of unconventional gas, including deep gas, gas-containing shale, coalbed methane(CBM), geopressurized zones, Arctic and subsea hydrates, and tight gas. Tight gas refers to natural gas reservoirs locked in extraordinarily impermeable, hard rocks(sandstone, siltstone or carbonate sedimentary rocks). In this study, we analyzed total 375 papers(2000-2014) of tight gas by country, institution, international cooperation etc.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.28 no.3
• /
• pp.258-266
• /
• 2022

Resource productivity (GDP/DMC) is defined as GDP divided by DMC. However, it has shortcomings when estimating the value-added generated from material processing. In this paper, an energy coefficient is applied to GDP to develop a sub-indicator (referred to as GDPe/DMC). Consequently, South Korea, which is a secondary industry-oriented country, created 1,094.60 USD/ton from input materials and was ranked 4th on the OECD list, which is 10 levels higher than the level estimated by GDP/DMC. However, Luxembourg, which is a tertiary industry-oriented country, is ranked 16th on the OECD list, which is 12 levels lower than the level estimated by GDP/DMC. The resource productivity estimated by the sub-indicator (GDPe/DMC) developed in this study indicates that secondary industry-oriented countries are undervalued in the existing main GDP/DMC calculation. On the other hand, tertiary industry-oriented countries are downgraded due to the industrial features of the GDPe/DMC calculation. As a result of this paper, GDPe/DMC could be considered a more reasonable indicator to directly reflect the material input effect compared to the existing main indicator, GDP/DMC. This means that GDPe/DMC-induced resource productivities could be estimated to be slightly higher than the GDP/DMC-induced resource productivities for secondary industry-oriented countries. It is expected that the sub-indicator, GDPe/DMC, proposed in this study could be useful especially for comparing and analyzing the resource productivities between countries that have different industry structures. This study intended to consider a structurally energy/resource-intensive industry in estimating and analyzing national-level resource productivity. Thus, the sub-indicator, GDPe/DMC, may help minimize the distortion of interpreting national resource productivities in various situations, and be utilized as a more efficient tool when used together with GDP/DMC.

• Resources Recycling
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.92-101
• /
• 2021

The status of waste generation and recycling in 32 countries in the European Union (EU), Japan, and the United States was investigated and summarized to encourage overseas market expansion for domestic urban mining industries. Among the 32 EU countries, Germany has the highest amount of material consumption and generates the largest quantity of waste. Minerals such as mine and soil wastes constitute the largest type of waste in the EU. With respect to waste treatment techniques, landfill and recycling are applied to 39% and 38% of the waste, respectively, implying the necessity to promote recycling. Japan's total waste generation declined recently to less than 400 million tons. The largest amount of waste is generated by the manufacturing industries. The proportion of total recycled waste is estimated to be slightly over 50%, but the proportions are greater than 90% for metal scrap and 60% for waste plastics. The amount of waste produced in the United States recently exceeded 265 million tons; 52.1% of the waste is landfilled, while only 25.1% is recycled. Therefore, the recycling industry has to be developed further.

• Clean Technology
• /
• v.30 no.3
• /
• pp.276-286
• /
• 2024

Since the Paris Agreement and the surge in global interest in climate change, the importance of measuring and managing national-level resource productivity has steadily grown. However, concerns about the reliability of productivity indicators persist due to inherent uncertainties. This study estimated the metal and non-metal resource productivities of 38 OECD countries through multiple regression analysis and conducted a comparative analysis of their ranking changes according to their current resource productivities. The study results revealed that the 38 OECD countries could be classified into four categories. First, countries with low overall resource productivities due to a high economic dependence on low-value metal resources by weight exhibited a substantial rise in their non-metal resource productivity rankings. Second, countries that have minimal metal industries in their national economies but generate high value-added from these sectors showed a notable increase in their metal resource productivity rankings. Third, countries with a low proportion of metal industry in their economies and low metal resource productivities experienced significant declines in their metal resource productivity rankings. Fourth, countries with a small disparity between their metal and non-metal resource productivities showed minimal changes in their rankings for both categories. These results highlight that changes in metal resource productivity rankings were more pronounced than those for non-metal resources, which implies that the influence of non-metal resources (biomass, fossil fuels, non-metallic minerals) dominates national-level resource productivity because their economic value is higher than metal resources. These findings suggest that it is necessary to manage the economic value of each resource type as distinct statistical data to provide a more nuanced understanding of national resource productivity.

• Resources Recycling
• /
• v.30 no.1
• /
• pp.77-82
• /
• 2021

Reduction of CO2 emissions is an important issue in the steel industry, and the research on carbon materials that can partially replace cokes is necessary to reduce CO2 emissions. Meanwhile, the biomass fuel contains some fixed carbon, and the carbon content in the biomass can be increased by torrefaction. As one of the biomass fuels, coffee grounds contains about 55 mass% of carbon, and its about 270,000 tons are landfilled and incinerated annually in Korea. In addition, research on the recycling process due to the increase in annual coffee consumption is required. In this study, the effect of temperature on the concentration of fixed carbon in coffee grounds was investigated during torrefaction. Moreover, the effects of mixing ratio of torrefied coffee grounds with cokes on the carbon concentration and dissolution efficiency in the metal sample were investigated.

• Resources Recycling
• /
• v.32 no.2
• /
• pp.12-18
• /
• 2023

In 2018, the demand for silver (referred to as Ag) in the electrical and electronics sector was 249 million tons. The demand stood at 81 million tons in the solar module production sector. Currently, due to the rapid increase in solar module installation, the demand for silver is increasing drastically in Korea. However, Korea's natural metal resources and reserves are insufficient in comparison to their consumption, and the domestic silver ore self-sufficiency rate was as low as 2.2% as of 2021. This implies that a recycling technology is necessary to recover valuable metal resources contained in the waste plating solution generated in the metal industry. Therefore, this study compared and analyzed, the results of the impact evaluation through life cycle assessment according to an improvement in the process of recovery of valuable metals in the waste plating solution. The process improvement resulted in reducing GWP (Global Warming Potential) and ADP(Abiotic Depletion Potential) by 50% and 67%, respectively. The GWP of electricity and industrial water was reduced by 98% and 93%, respectively, which significantly contributed to the minimization of energy and water consumption. Thus, the improvement in recycling technology has a high potential to reduce chemical and energy use and improve resource productivity in the urban mining industry.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
• /
• v.95 no.1
• /
• pp.60-72
• /
• 2006

The aim of this paper is to identify and evaluate relations for forest greening and the firewood substitution for home use after 1945 Liberation of Korea. Korea faced serious forest degradation by the early 1960s due to the enormous firewood consumption, which was about ten million cubic meters annually, for home use. If the trend of firewood consumption was maintained until 1955's, the total forest area in Korea could be thoroughly degraded within 10 years. The firewood substitution for home use had to be solved as soon as possible. For this purpose, energy sector by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry carried out the substitution policy for home using the briquettes which was the only natural resources for energy produced in Korea. Firewood was prohibited being carried in the major cities by forestry sector, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, from 1958. Only 5.2% of household in the cities used the forest products consumed as a fuel in 1970 because these inter-sectoral substitution measures of firewood for home use turned out a success gradually. After the 1970s, firewood consumption for home use was naturally decreased due to rural people's explosive move to cities, who were major consumers of firewood for home use at that time. Firewood for cooking was substituted by LPG gas after 1985 and firewood for house heating was substituted by coal and oil after 1980. Finally, on the basis of the firewood substitution for home use, the forest degradation that lasted over one hundred years was put a period.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.110-123
• /
• 2016

Since increase in energy consumption and environmental issues started to grab global attention, various countries have had their own supporting policy to promote supply of renewable energy which is a stable and eco-friendly energy source. This study analyses Korean Renewable Portfolio Standard by comparative analysis of current policies in major countries in respect of design components of a pragmatic industrial policy system, such as political leadership, policy coordination and consultative committee discussion, and policy enforcement with responsibility and transparency. This is to identify problems and to present political suggestions for successful management of the standard based on a fundamental concept of the pragmatism industrial policy. It is predicted that the strategic cooperation between a market and a government leads to industry development as the relationships of two parties are regarded not as antagonistic but as complementary.