• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.27 no.5
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• pp.153-166
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• 2023

Purpose - This research empirically analyzes the influence of economic policy uncertainty and free trade agreements (FTAs) on bilateral trade volumes between Korea and its trading partners. The study investigates whether fluctuations in the Economic Policy Uncertainty Index (EPUI) for both Korea and its trading partners significantly impact trade volumes and whether the implementation of FTAs mitigates these effects. Design/methodology - The study employs dynamic panel data analysis using the system generalized method of moments (system GMM) estimation method to achieve its research objectives. It utilizes country-month-level panel data, including the EPUI, trade volume between Korea and its trading partner countries, and other pertinent variables. The use of system GMM allows for the control of potential endogeneity issues and the incorporation of country-specific and time-specific effects. Findings - The analysis yields significant results regarding the impact of economic policy uncertainty on Korea's exports and imports, particularly before the implementation of FTAs. An increase in the EPUI of trading partners leads to a notable increase in Korea's exports to them. Conversely, an increase in Korea's EPUI negatively affects its imports from trading partners. However, post-FTA implementation, the influence of each country's EPUI on trade volume is neutralized, with no significant difference observed. Originality/value - This research contributes to the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on the interaction effects between economic policy uncertainty and FTAs on bilateral trade volumes. The study's uniqueness lies in its examination of how FTAs mitigate the impact of economic uncertainty on trade relations between countries. The findings underscore the importance of trade agreements as mechanisms to address economic risks and promote international trade relations. In a world where global market uncertainties persist, these insights can aid policymakers in Korea and other countries in enhancing their trade cooperation strategies and navigating challenges posed by evolving economic landscapes.

• 한국신재생에너지학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2011.05a
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• pp.109.1-109.1
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• 2011

KEPCO was operating power plants with diesel generators in 49 islands including Baekryeong-Do, and the generation capacity was about 66 MW in 2008. The cost of fuel is increasing by the international oil price inflation and continuous rise of oil price is predicted. For the stabilizing of electric power supply to the separate islands, renewable energy and fuel cell systems were considered. Hydrogen is made using renewable energy such as wind power and solar energy, and then a fuel cell system generates electricity with the stored hydrogen. Though the system efficiency is low, it is treated as the only way to secure the stable electric supply using renewable energy at this present. The analytic hierarchy process was used to select suitable candidate island for the system installation and 5 islands including Ulleung-Do were selected. Economic evaluation for the system composed of a kerosene generator, a wind power, an electrolysis, and a fuel cell system was conducted with levelized generation cost based on present value methode. As the result, the necessity of renewable energy combined generation system and micro grid composition in the candidated islands was confirmed. Henceforth, the development of an integration technology which connects micro grid to the total power grid will be needed.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.27 no.4
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• pp.447-461
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• 2016

Recently, the Renewable Fuel Standard(RFS) has been commenced from July 31, 2015 in the New and Renewable Energy Act for expanding the supply of renewable energy and reduction of national GHG target in Korea. The biodiesel is only a means of implementation for the RFS, therefore the biodiesel supply expansion is important for fulfilling the RFS obligation policy. The major key points of the biodiesl supply are expanding domestic feedstocks due to the over 60% dependence on foreign feedstock and reducing the price of feedstock because of the over 70% occupation of feed stock price in the biodiesl production cost. Therefore, we estimated actual amount of potential feedstocks which are possible to use for biodiesl production in Korea and investigated technical and political improvements for expanding biodiesl. For estimating a potential feedstocks, first selected the potential biodiesl feedstocks by investigating the status of global biodiesl feedstocks and then analyzed the possible potential amount of each feedstock by surveying the generation situations, the distribution structures and the technical level.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.704-711
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• 2017

Korea, which has a high dependency on energy imports, is greatly affected by fluctuations in international oil prices. In order to offset these effects, various policies such as 'diversification of energy sources' and 'energy mix' are being pursued. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a policy promoted for this purpose, and a compulsory mixing system is applied only to the diesel. In order to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in various countries, they are concentrating on the dissemination of bio-alcohol as well as bio-diesel, and commercialization through various verification. In this study, evaluation of domestic materials and vehicles was carried out to promote domestic bio alcohol fuel. We analyzed the fuel characteristics of domestic quality standard items by mixing them with gasoline of automobile at a certain mixing ratio (0%, 3%, 6%, and 10%).

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.484-492
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• 2015

As our government is actively introducing the RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standards) as a national renewable energy obligation policy, power producers are using the various renewable energy to meet the RPS supply quota since 2012. Recently, it is appling to use power bio-fuel oil in bio-fuel oil demonstration project with power companies. In general, power bio-fuel oils are composed of mixture products of vegetable oil, animal fat, fatty acid ester and waste oil. It is already developing for a power plant as a renewable energy abroad. In Korea, it is studying a 100% combustion and blended combustion of heavy fuel oil and bio-fuel oil. In this study, we investigated fuel characteristics of mixed power bio-fuel oil and its emission performance. Especially, it was reduced emissions of bio-oil in industrial boilers due to bio-fuel properties as compare with fuel oil.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.279-284
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• 2021

In this study, the performance and distribution of fluid concentration, pressure, and current density of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell was investigated. In this paper, the two different types of flow field design were compared, singel channel and 5-channels. As a result, the 5-channels of flow field showed the better performance than that of single chanel. Especially, the single channel showed better performance in terms of mass transfer loss area.

• Journal of Korean Society of Industrial and Systems Engineering
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.39-44
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• 2015

The VHTR (Very High Temperature gas-cooled nuclear Reactor) has been considered as a major heat source and the most safe generation IV type reactor for mass hydrogen production to prepare for the hydrogen economy era. The VHTR satisfies goals for the GIF (Generation IV International Forum) policy such as sustainablility, economics, reliability and proliferation resistance and physical protection, and safety. As a part of a VHTR economic analysis, we have studied the VHTR construction cost and operation and maintenance cost. However, it is somewhat difficult to expect the ripple effect on the whole industry due to the lack of information about Inter-industries relationship. In many case, the ripple effect are based on experts' knowledge or uncertain qualitative assumptions. As a result, we propose quantitative analysis techniques for ripple effects such as the production inducement effect, added value inducement effect, and employment inducement effect for VHTR 600MWt${\times}$4 modules construction and operation ripple effect based on NOAK (Nth Of A Kind). Because inducement effect values have been published annually, we predict inducement effect's relation function and estimated values including production inducement effect value, added value inducement effect value, and employment inducement effect value using time series and estimated values are verified with published inducement effects' value. This paper presents a new method for the ripple effect and preliminary ripple effect consequence using a time series analysis and inter-industry table. This ripple effect analysis techniques can be applied to effect expectation analysis as well as other type reactor's ripple effect analysis including VHTR for process heat.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.53 no.6
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• pp.793-807
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• 2020

The policy for Green New Deal will promote the shift of the application to coal as feedstock from coal as fuel. Coal can be used as fuel for production of hydrogen and as feedstock materials such as synthetic graphite or activated carbon. Hydrogen is obtained from syngas produced through Steam carbon(SC), Water-Gas Shift(WGS), and Carbonation reactions, and these processes should be used in conjunction with CO2 sequestration technology. Anthracite has a potential in terms of cost advantage as a feedstock compared to a petroleum pitch, because Synthetic graphite is prepared by heat treating an anthracite with high rank to a graphitization temperature which is in the range of 2400~2800℃, in the presence of inorganic catalyst such as silicon or iron. From several studies, it has been confirmed that coal-based activated carbon(AC) is manufactured with quality similar to the large specific surface area and much micropore volume of lignin-based AC, can be prepared. Therefore it is expected that lignin-based AC is replaced to coal-based AC.

• Journal of Korean Society for Atmospheric Environment
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.570-582
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• 2017

In recent years, national and local government's air quality management and climate change adaptation policy has been significantly strengthened. The measures in the two policies may be in a relationship of trade-off or synergy to each other. Greenhouse gases and air pollutants are mostly emitted from the same sources of using considerable amounts of fossil fuels. Co-benefits, in which either measure has a positive effect on the other, may be maximized by reducing the social costs and by consolidating the objectives of the various policies. In this study, the co-benefits were examined by empirically analyzing the effects of air pollutants and greenhouse gas emission reduction, social cost, and cost effectiveness between the two policies. Of the total 80 projects, the next 12 projects generated co-benefits. They are 1) extend restriction area of solid fuel use, 2) expand subsidy of low-$NO_x$ burner, 3) supply hybrid-vehicles, 4) supply electric-vehicles, 5) supply hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, 6) engine retrofit, 7) scrappage of old car, 8) low emission zone, 9) transportation demand management, 10) supply land-based electric of ship, 11) switching anthracite to clean fuel in private sector, 12) expand regional combined-energy supply. The benefits of air pollutants and greenhouse gas-related measures were an annual average of KRW 2,705.4 billion. The social benefits of the transportation demand management were the highest at an annual average of KRW 890.7 billion, and followed by scrappage of old cars and expand regional combined-energy supply. When the social benefits and the annual investment budgets are compared, the cost effectiveness ratio is estimated to be about 3.8. Overall, the reduction of air pollutants caused by the air quality management policy of Gyeonggi-do resulted in an annual average of KRW 4,790.2 billion. In the point sources management sector, the added value of $CO_2$ reduction increased by 4.8% to KRW 1,062.8 billion, while the mobile sources management sector increased by 3.6% to KRW 3,414.1 billion. If social benefits from $CO_2$ reduction are added, the annual average will increase by 7.2% to KRW 5,135.4 billion. The urban and energy management sectors have shown that social benefits increase more than twice as much as the benefits of $CO_2$ reduction. This result implies that more intensive promotion of these measures are needed. This study has significance in that it presents the results of the empirical analysis of the co-benefits generated between the similar policies in the air quality management and the climate change policy which are currently being promoted in Gyeonggi-do. This study suggested that the method of analyzing the policy effect among the main policies in the climate atmospheric policy is established and the effectiveness and priority of the major policies can be evaluated through the policy correlation analysis based on the co-benefits. It is expected that it could be a basis for evaluation the efficiency of the climate change adaptation and air quality management policies implemented by the national and local governments in the future.

• Transactions of the Korean hydrogen and new energy society
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.223-229
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• 2013

Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is a power generation system to convert chemical energy of fuels and oxidants to electricity directly by electrochemical reactions. As a catalyst support for PEMFCs, carbon black has been generally used due to its large surface area and high electrical conductivity. However, under certain circumstances (start up/shut down, fuel starvation, ice formation etc.), carbon supports are subjected to serve corrosion in the presence of water. Therefore, it would be desirable to switch carbon supports to corrosion-resistive support materials such as metal oxide. $TiO_2$ has been attractive as a support with its stability in fuel cell operation atmosphere, low cost, commercial availability, and the ease to control size and structure. However, low electrical conductivity of $TiO_2$ still inhibits its application to catalyst support for PEMFCs. In this paper, to explore feasibility of $TiO_2$ as a catalyst support for PEMFCs, $TiO_2$ nanofibers were synthesized by electrospinning and calcinated at 600, 700, 800 and $900^{\circ}C$. Effects of calcination temperature on crystal structure and electrical conductivity of electrospun $TiO_2$ nanofibers were examined. Electrical conductivity of $TiO_2$ nanofibers increased significantly with increasing calcination temperature from $600^{\circ}C$ to $700^{\circ}C$ and then increased gradually with increasing the calcination temperature from $700^{\circ}C$ to $900^{\circ}C$. It was revealed that the remarkable increase in electrical conductivity could be attributed to phase transition of $TiO_2$ nanofibers from anatase to rutile at the temperature range from $600^{\circ}C$ to $700^{\circ}C$.