Perspectives of the Renewable Energy Industry in Korea

 Kim, Eui-Hong, Professor   

Dept. of Information & Communication Engineering

Chungnam National Univ.

Taejeon, South Korea

Abstract

'Kyoto Protocol' which makes efforts for reducing the discharge amount of various glass-house gases including CO₂  in order to prevent global warming phenomena started Feb. 16th, 2005.

In Germany, an exemplary nation of the renewable energy development, 'Solarcomplex' as a pilot project of a civil sector, has been launched since July 2000 for the purpose of 100% energy conversion from conventional to new renewable energy in the area around Bodensee lake in the end of 2030.

Even in Korea, CEA(Center for Energy Alternative) as a civil institution attached to KFEM(Korean Federation of Environmental Movement) has been established in Oct. 2000, and the government Act on 'Promotion of New and Renewable Energy' was revised in the year 2002 after recognizing unavoidable trend of the introduction of the renewable energy.

Nevertheless, Korean government prefers atomic energy generation in place of conventional thermal power generation, even though the renewable energy is preferred in the civil society.

In general, the system of demand and supply of the electric power using conventional fossil fuel / atomic energy resources has the properties of centralized structure. The reason is that big scaled centralized supplying system is more efficient for satisfying the demand of modern industrial facilities and urban establishments as well.

Meanwhile, the properties of renewable energy are small scaled distributed system more or less, so that it does not fit well the social infra-structure recently concentrated.

But the economy based on the fossil fuel / atomic energy would be emaciated after 25 years(Petroleum is drained out) ~ 50 years(Uranium is excavated out).

Thus, in order to avoid the decline of present global civilization, the conventional energy system should be converted onto the renewable energy system because of that only the renewable energy development promises the sustainable future of human societies forwards.