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S-K: The road to consumerizing renewable
The following is the 15th in a series of articles focusing on the Korean government’s “green growth” strategy. The series will also introduce the increasing efforts of major advanced countries of the world to promote a green economy. – Ed.
On Aug. 15, 2008, President Lee Myung-bak proclaimed “low carbon green growth” as a new development initiative. Green growth has become a high priority in U.S. President Obama’s “Green New Deal.” While Japan has a vision of a low carbon society, as proclaimed by former Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.
Korea’s green growth strategy has three pillars: creating new growth engines, minimizing energy/resources consumption and reducing CO2 and other emissions.
In pursuing the development of new growth engines, the essential policies will include R&D investment in green technologies, promotion of green industries to export green products such as renewable energies, and support of international green markets.
To minimize energy/resource consumption without impeding steady growth, the industry structure must be transformed into a more energy-efficient one. It must be led by the knowledge-based service industry, energy efficiency enhancement and a move towards more eco-friendly policies.
Finally, in order to minimize CO2 and other emissions, the necessary policy measures include diffusion of renewable energies, development of clean energy, control of CO2 emissions, development of low carbon/eco-friendly infrastructure and promotion of green product purchases.
In pursuing a green growth strategy, renewable energies have critical implications for Korea compared with other developed countries. This is because Korea has continued to pursue manufacturing-oriented economic growth despite its limited domestic energy resources. As such, Korea is inevitably dependent on foreign fossil energies. However, Korea’s manufacturing technology competitiveness can take the lead in developing renewable energy sources.
The tight global energy supply and a rapid increase in domestic and foreign demand for energy make renewable energies the inevitable energy source for the future. Recently, the so-called “peak oil” hypothesis, which holds that crude oil reserves cannot meet current or future demand increases, is gaining acceptance, given the explosive petroleum demand of newly-industrializing countries such as China and India.
Korea must drastically alter its energy consumption structure.
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