• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.251-258
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• 2016

This article reports current status of micro fuel cell-combined heat and power (${\mu}FC$-CHP) systems which utilize both power and heat generated by fuel cells. There are several options for constructing CHP systems and among them, fuel cells are the most useful and their total energy efficiency combining heat and power can reach up to about 90%. Fuel cells are classified as five types based on the electrolyte, but the most suitable fuel cell types for the ${\mu}FC$-CHP system are proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) and solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs). ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems have several advantages such as decrease of the transmission-distribution loss, reduced costs of electricity due to distributed power generation, and environmental-friendliness owing to zero emission. The main drawback of the ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems is the high initial investment, however, it keeps decreasing as the technology development reduces production costs. Currently, Japan is the most leading country of the ${\mu}FC$-CHP market, however, Korea tries to expand the market by planning the deployment of 1 million units of ${\mu}FC$-CHP systems and governmental subsidiary supporting of half of the install price. In this report, integration technologies for connecting FC and CHP, and technology trends of leading countries are presented as well.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.590-595
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• 2016

The US is pursuing a plan to raise the subsidies for electric vehicles by more than 30%. The number of electric vehicles in Europe is expected to be one million by 2020 and 2030 and there are plans to expand in the center of Germany to supply six million electric vehicles on the dissemination and development policies. The development of the electric vehicle is not simply a technical trend but there is the potential to improve the access to this technology and the possibility of changing the entire social system and long-term energy security. Domestic competition is also increasing the supply of electric vehicles, as new blue ocean markets are emerging. The current domestic On-board Charger (Home Charger) plans to be suspended from the 2015 government-sponsored installation, This paper on the IEC 61851-1 and IEC 61851-22 specifications analyzes the development of a midnight electricity charger as a low-cost algorithm, the decrease in price and the improved convenience of the On-board Charger for Bluetooth module with the ATmega128 existing charger system, and the UI configuration via the LCD Panel to a Smartphone app are proposed.

• Journal of Hydrogen and New Energy
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.8-15
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• 1998

The catalytic hydrogenation of carbon dioxide has been studied for the fixation of carbon dioxide to mitigate global warming problems, but it needed hydrogen, which the price is still high. Recently, the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide has been drawn attractions because carbon dioxide could be converted to the valuable chemicals such as methane, ethane and alcohols electrochemically in the electrolyte solution using a catalytic electrode. This system is simple because the water electrolysis and hydrogenation take place at the same time using the surplus electricity at midnight. In this work, a continuous electrochemical reduction system was fabricated, which was composed of the reduction electrode (copper or perovskite type, $2{\times}2cm^2$), reference electrode(platinum, $2{\times}6cm^2$), standard electrode(Ag/AgCl), and potassium bicarbonate electrolyte solution saturated with carbon dioxide. The quality and quantity of the products and reduction current were analyzed, according to the electrolyte concentration and electrode type.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.519-547
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• 2017

This paper explores whether it is better to forecast city gas demand in Korea using national level data directly or, alternatively, construct forecasts from regional demand models and then aggregate these regional forecasts. In the regional model, we consider gas demand for Seoul metropolitan and the other local areas. Our forecast evaluation exercise for 2013-2016 shows the regional forecast model generally outperforms the national forecasting model. This result comes from the fact that the dynamic properties of each region's gas demands can be better taken into account in the regional demand model. More specifically, the share of residential gas demand in the Seoul metropolitan area is above 50%, and subsequently this demand is heavily influenced by temperature fluctuations. Conversely, the dominant portion of regional gas demand is due to industrial gas consumption. Moreover, electricity is regarded as a substitute for city gas in the residential sector, and industrial gas competes with certain oil products. Our empirical results show that a regional demand forecast model can be an effective alternative to the demand model based on nation-wide gas consumption and that regional information about gas demand is also useful for analyzing sectoral gas consumption.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.79-91
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• 2017

The core of Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles (FCV) is polymer solid fuel cell (PEFC), and the core material that generates electrochemical electricity in the cell is platinum catalyst. Platinum is localized in South Africa and Russia, and the world production of Pt is about 178 tons per year, which is expensive and recycled. At present, the amount of Pt used in PEFC is $0.2{\sim}0.1mg/cm^2$. In order to reduce the price of the battery and increase the FCV supply, the target is to reduce the amount of Pt used to $0.05{\sim}0.03mg/cm^2$. $Pt-Pd/Al_2O_3$, Pt/C, Pt/GCB, Pt/Au/C, PtCo/C, PtPd/C, etc. by using polyol method using nano Pt, improved Cu-UPD/Pt substitution method and nano-capsule method, Have been researched and developed, and there have been reported techniques for improving the activity of Pt catalysts and stabilizing them. This paper investigates the production technology of nano-Pt and nano-Pt catalysts, recycling of spent Pt catalysts and application trends of Pt catalysts.

• Journal of Korean Society of Transportation
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.35-47
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• 2004

Using data envelopment analysis, this paper annually estimates Malmquist total factor productivity indices and decomposes them into productive efficiency change, technical change, and scale change components for three publicly-owned rail transit properties: the Seoul Subway Corporation(SSC), the Seoul Metropolitan Electrified Railways Sector of Korea National Railroad (SMESRS) and the Busan Urban Transit Authority (BUTA). The paper then conceptualizes that the property produces a single output(car-kilometers) using four inputs(labor, electricity, car and maintenance, and track) and uses unbalanced panel data consisted of annual observations on SSC, SMESRS and BUTA. The results show that the average annual growth rate of productivity of the three properties is 6.6 percent, which is 0.5 percent less than the average annual increasing rate of their labor price. They also show that the greatest part of the growth in productivity is explained by technical change and to a lesser degree by scale change and changes in productive efficiency though each of the three components contributes more than 20 percent to the growth in productivity, These results suggest that the three properties should base the increasing rate of their wages on the growth rate of their productivity and utilize existing technologies more efficiently prior to introducing new ones to raise their productivity, and that all the three components should be considered to evaluate their productivity more correctly.

• Journal of Radiation Industry
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.217-221
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• 2015

When reactor coolant leaks occur due to cracks of a steam generator's tube, radioactive materials contained in the primary cooling water in nuclear power plant are forced out toward the secondary systems. At this time the secondary water purification resin in the ion exchange resin tower of the steam generator blowdown system is contaminated by the radioactivity of the leaked radioactive materials, so we pack this in special containers and store temporarily because we could not dispose it by ourselves. If steam generator tube leakage occurs, it produces contaminated spent resins annually about 5,000~7,000 liters. This may increase the amount of nuclear waste productions, a disposal working cost and a unit price of generating electricity in the plant. For this reasons, it is required to develop a decontamination process technique for reducing the radioactive level of these resins enough to handle by the self-disposal method. In this research, First, Investigated the structure and properties of the ion exchange resin used in a steam generator blowdown system. Second, Checked for a occurrence status of contaminated spent resin and a disposal technology. Third, identified the chemical characteristics of the waste radionuclides of the spent resin, and examined ionic bonding and separation mechanism of radioactive nuclear species and a spent resin. Finally, we carried out the decontamination experiment using chemicals, ultrasound, microbubbles, supercritical carbon dioxide to process these spent resin. In the case of the spent resin decontamination method using chemicals, the higher the concentration of the drug decontamination efficiency was higher. In the ultrasound method, foreign matter of the spent resin was removed and was found that the level of radioactivity is below of the MDA. In the microbubbles method, we found that the concentration of the radioactivity decreased after the experiment, so it can be used to the decontamination process of the spent resin. In supercritical carbon dioxide method, we found that it also had a high decontamination efficiency. According to the results of these experiments, almost all decontamination method had a high efficiency, but considering the amounts of the secondary waste productions and work environment of the nuclear power plant, we judged the ultrasound and supercritical carbon dioxide method are suitable for application to the plant and we established the plant applicable decontamination process system on the basis of these two methods.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.21-30
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• 2017

Recently, There has been much discussed about unused space. This space can be used in a variety of ways. Utilizing it as a facility, craft shop, and utilizing renewable energy generation facilities. Especially, in terms of climate change should be supplied renewable energy. Renewable energy needs to be developed in terms of responding to climate change, and the recent Paris agreement is also emphasizing the importance of renewable energy. In particular, renewable energy needs to be widely disseminated. And renewable energy is limited space. In this regard, idle land can provide opportunities for securing new renewable energy generation facilities. The introduction of new and renewable energy facilities in idle space can enhance the self-sufficiency rate of the local community, which is significant in terms of responding to climate. In this study, to investigate the possibility of utilizing a unused space for a photovoltaic power generation facility, we investigated the amount of electricity which could be generated through photovoltaic power generation, and the economic effects, using a RETScreen model. The results showed that 9,738 MWh of power can be generated and that $4,540tCO_2eqcan$ be saved. Regarding the economic effect, the net present value of the facility was shown to be 2,247,389,020 KRW. As the net present value was shown to be positive, we believe that the installation of a photovoltaic power generation facility in an unused space would have a positive economic effect. We found the net present value following the fluctuation of the SMP price to be positive, though there was some variation. However, as the economic efficiency was shown to be low because the net present value in relation to the maintenance costs was negative, we believe that maintenance costs must be taken fully into account when evaluating economic efficiency. In particular, as subsidies can be used to cover maintenance costs which must be factored into photovoltaic power generation, we believe that photovoltaic power generation can have an economic effect. Because spaces not currently in use can have a positive economic effect as renewable energy power generation facilities, and can also contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, unused spaces are thought to greatly help local governments to cope with climate change as well as reinforcing their related capabilities. We believe our study will help local governments with decisions relating to unused real estate utilization in the future.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.30 no.4
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• pp.557-579
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• 2021

Collective energy is an intermediate stage in energy conversion and has a great influence on the power structure as a distributed power source. However, the problem of the collective energy business has recently emerged due to the worsening profitability of some collective energy operators. This study measured the technical efficiency of major operators through the estimation of the production efficiency of Korean collective energy operators, and based on this, we looked at ways to improve the profit structure of operators. After collecting detailed data from 16 collective energy operators between 2016 and 2019, the production efficiency of operators was estimated using the panel stochastic frontier model. As a result of the estimation, combined steam power operators showed the highest production efficiency and reverse CHP operators showed the lowest efficiency. Furthermore, as a result of examining the factors influencing profitability, it was confirmed that production efficiency has a positive effect on overall profitability. However, businesses with a high proportion of heat production, such as small district electricity operators, profitability was lower. This phenomenon is due to the structural limitations of the current heat sales market. Hence, the adjustment of the heat sales unit price is necessary to improve profitability of collective energy operators.

• Korean Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.26-35
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• 2022

The 7th education reform in 1997 has led changes in the way buildings were constructed and such changes drove educational facilities to steadily consume more energy every year. Also, these facilities take several years' estimated expenditure as well as the increased unit price of electricity into account when planning their annual operating budget. Such circumstances may adversely affect the establishment of their budget plan since improper allocation of operating costs could take place. To propose educational facilities' operating budget management plan on electrical energy consumption, this study developed a model that help oversee the facilities' consumption of electrical energy. For the model development, the primary core variables related to electrical energy factors from the aspects of surroundings, physics, policy, etc. were derived from taking both literature research and the characteristics of these facilities into account. The secondary core variables were then derived using the correlation analysis. Lastly, the electric energy use prediction model was developed by performing regression analysis based on the derived secondary core variables.