Published in:Korea Institute for Industrial Economics and Trade Research Paper ; No. 12/IER/17/1-3
Extent:
1 Online-Ressource (10 p)
Language:
English
DOI:
10.2139/ssrn.4209743
Identifier:
Origination:
Footnote:
Nach Informationen von SSRN wurde die ursprüngliche Fassung des Dokuments February 29, 2012 erstellt
Description:
Korea shows a very high energy consumption level because of its many energy-intensive industries such as petrochemical, steel making and cement industry. With scarce energy resources except a small natural gas basin, it basically gives Korea a severe limit to sustainable growth. But before the mid 2000s energy saving and substitution with renewable energy sources had been treated poorly because of other urgent need such as economic growth.Recently with the imminent advent of ‘Peak Oil’ which means drying up of fossil fuel sources and outer pressure from Kyoto Protocol, Korea has no time to spare hesitating instead of pursuing more aggressive policies on energy saving and alternative energy sources. And after global financial crisis in 2008 it became urgent to seek for other socio-economic growth engines and further creation of employment. Renewable energy industry has attracted global attention as one of the efficient ways for addressing the urgent needs. In USA so-called ‘Obama Plan’ which contains ambitious programs on renewable energy ignited the renewable energy boom. And also in Europe and Japan which already have shown their deep interests in renewable energy sources, many new projects are announced for stimulating economy and boosting employment.It is not a coincidence that Korea had announced its own type of ‘Low Carbon and Green Growth’ and several proactive plans for upbringing domestic renewable energy industry during the same period. Fortunately Korea has a fairly good condition for developing domestic renewable energy industry because it has many globally competitive industries such as semi-conductor, chemical and shipbuilding industries which share some common technical foundations with renewable energy industry. Therefore Korea should seek development of domestic renewable energy industry through the efficient cooperation with those related industries and strengthen the capability of domestic renewable energy SME companies.In spite of the fact that major companies have been participating in renewable energy areas recently, Korea’s renewable energy industry are yet to gain global competitiveness. Furthermore with the recent severe global economic environment which involves a concern over the double dip possibly occurring in near future, most countries have cut support for renewable energy use. To make matters worse Korea’s renewable energy industry has faced a huge competitor like China which shows a high competitiveness in price and supply size. Therefore for the time being the survival from global chicken game is the utmost task for Korea’s renewable energy industryIn this point of view, this article briefly shows recent achievement of Korea's renewable energy industries and presents some tasks for ensuring their sustainable growth