• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.545-564
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• 2016

Recently as fine and ultra fine particles become major environmental issues in Korea, it is very important to develop effective solutions to air pollution. Accordingly this study aims at detecting causes of air pollution by using models and examining if diesel price increases contribute to reduction of diesel consumption and air pollution. TSP, PM10, $NO_X$, $SO_X$, CO, and VOC are included as major air pollutants. As a result, we found invert U shape curve between pollution and income for all air pollutants except CO. Consumer price index, coal power capacity, diesel consumption, frequency of yellow dust, number of natural gas buses, number of transport business, annual average temperature, number of manufacturing businesses are also influential in explaining causes of air pollution. As diesel price increases by 1%, air pollutants decline between 0.07~0.12% in the short run. Simultaneously, the additional revenue from increases in diesel prices might be transferred to support expansion of biofuel market. Also, stronger policy should be developed to mitigate the current air pollution problem.

• Clean Technology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.263-272
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• 2019

Air pollutants have a high impact on everyday life as well as on human health; therefore, new technologies such as low-emission vehicles and add-on systems for air pollutant reduction are needed for our society. However, the environmental benefits and costs of those technologies are not taken into account in existing economic feasibility assessments, which is a barrier that needs to be overcome for green technology to achieve wide dissemination and fast penetration in the market. Thus, this study develops a methodology to assess the economic feasibility of an air pollutant reduction technology by taking into account the social costs from air pollutants and carries out a case study to validate the methodology. Because the social unit costs for air pollutants have not been evaluated yet in South Korea, the methodology uses the social unit costs evaluated for the European Union that are then converted to those for South Korea based on the measuring criteria for vehicle emission gases, parity purchasing price, foreign currency exchange rate, and customer price index. The social unit costs for South Korea are used to assess economic feasibility. A case study was performed to assess the economic feasibility of a dual fuel system using diesel and compressed natural gas by taking into account social costs from air pollutants as well as economic costs. This study could contribute to assessing the true economic feasibility of green technology, projects, and policy related with air pollutant reduction.

• Journal of Energy Engineering
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• v.20 no.3
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• pp.231-235
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• 2011

Ligneous biomass such as wood pellet is characterized as carbon neutral which has no carbon dioxide emission ; additionally, it can be used as an alternative fuel by co-firing without additional plant reformation as well as for maintaining stability of fuel supply. We can develop CDM project while co-firing by using biomass into conventional coal fired thermal power plant with AM0085 CDM methodology, and it's possible to prove additionality as fuel cost per kWh is higher than bituminous. The study shows that the electricity by biomass can reduce green house emission by $0.6737tCO_2$ per MWh.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.131-140
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• 2010

Zero waste clean city was visualized by designing the environmental fundamental facilities such as automated waste collection and bio-energizing system of domestic waste, which was categorized into food and combustible waste from urban area. The biomass circulation position was applied to the domestic waste collection position combined with bio-energizing system in the zero waste clean city. Bio-energizing system consisted of bio-gasification, bio-fuel and bioenergy-circulation process. Food wastes were treated by bio-gasification with anaerobic digestion, and combustible wastes were made of bio-fuel with pyrolysis/drying. Biogas and bio-fuel was utilized into the electric generation or boiler heat in bioenergy-circulation process. The emission of carbon dioxide(CO2) and construction fee of the environmental fundamental facilities related with domestic waste was estimated in the existing city and zero waste clean city, assuming the amount of food waste 35 ton/day, combustible waste 20 ton/day from domestic area. Consequently, 2.7 times lower carbon dioxide emission and 15% construction fee of the environmental fundamental facilities related with domestic waste were obtained from the zero waste clean city by comparing with existing city.

• Journal of Climate Change Research
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.423-433
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• 2018

Particulate matter air pollution is a serious problem affecting human health and visibility. The variations in $PM_{10}$ concentrations are influenced by not only local emission sources, but also atmospheric circulation conditions. In this study, we investigate the temporal features of $PM_{10}$ concentrations in South Korea and the atmospheric circulation patterns associated with high concentration episodes of $PM_{10}$ during winter (December-January-February) 2001-2016. Based on those analyses, a Korea Particulate matter Index (KPI) is developed to represent the large-scale atmospheric pattern associated with high concentration episodes of $PM_{10}$. The atmospheric patterns are characterized by persistent high-pressure anomalies, weakened lower-level north-westerly anomalies, and northward shift of the upper-level meridional wind anomalies near the Korean Peninsula. To evaluate the change in occurrence of high concentration episodes of $PM_{10}$ under a possible future warmer climate, we apply KPI analysis to CMIP5 climate simulations. Here, historical and two representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) are used. It is found that the occurrence of atmospheric conditions favorable for high $PM_{10}$ concentration episodes tends to increase over South Korea in response to climate change. This suggests that large-scale atmospheric circulation changes under future warmer climate can contribute to increasing high $PM_{10}$ concentration episodes in South Korea.

• Resources Recycling
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.45-56
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• 2023

This study analyzed the economic and environmental effect of recycling rhodium used in the non-catalytic field. As an analysis methodology, economic effect analysis applied cost-benefit analysis and resource-saving effect analysis and the environmental effect analysis applied life cycle assessment (LCA). The results show that from an economic point of view, the cost-benefit ratio was 1.28, which was feasible, and the cost reduction was 237,000 won based on 1 g of rhodium recycled and the amount of rhodium recycled was 7.17 billion won in 2025. As for the environmental effect, the greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions were compared between the case of recycling based on rhodium 1 kg and the case of overseas sales. The calculation results show that based on rhodium 1 kg, greenhouse gas emissions were reduced by 99.8%, from 65 kg CO₂eq./kg-Rh when recycling to 28,800 kg CO₂eq. when sold overseas. The results obtained from this study could suggest that rhodium recycling is necessary in Korea where resources are scarce by analyzing the economic and environmental effect of recycling rhodium used in the non-catalytic field.

• Journal of Korean Society of Forest Science
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• v.102 no.2
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• pp.216-222
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• 2013

For reducing greenhouse gases, many countries carried out a series of activities not only at home but abroad. Particularly, after the release of the Kyoto Protocol, either nation or companies' participation was intensified, due to endow to responsibility of emission limits. This study focused on reforestation CDM work in Goseong Gun based on clean development system. Obstacle factors of land eligibility could be distinguished to three periods: before December 31th 1989, present and future. The obstacle before December 31th 1989 was that land cover of study area hardly illustrated by Landsat image, due to the low resolution, which were confirmed by a document of Grassland Composition Permission instead. The problem of current land eligibility is that the area of trees presence are difficult to be determined as forest or not. The boundary of forest in strata was identified, using 3-Dimensional Cartography Machine and aerial photograph. Land eligibility would still have obstacle whether the study area with trees presence has potentiality to be forest in the future at situation in absence of reforestation project. This was resolved by prediction of tree growth using stem analysis during execution of the project at study area.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.1585-1598
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• 2011

Emission reduction program for in-use diesel vehicles (ERPDV) has been enacted since 2004 over the Seoul metropolitan area, and diesel emission reduction is forced to fulfill this regulation. This study was performed to evaluate the ERPDV using $PM_{10}$ concentrations of both road-side monitoring and national background network during the period of 2004-2010. In order to assess the pure road emission, we first eliminated the long range transport effect by deducting the trend of annual national background concentrations from the road-side $PM_{10}$ concentrations, and then analyzed the time series of the resultant $PM_{10}$ concentrations over Seoul metropolitan area. The annual rates of variations of road-side $PM_{10}$ with the deduction of trend of background level show -3.2, +0.4, and -2.4 ${\mu}g/m^3$/year, in Seoul, Incheon, and Gyonggi province, respectively. There are steadily decreasing trend in Seoul with all of statistic parameters such as mean, mediam, 5%ile, 10%ile, 25%ile, 75%ile, 90%ile, and 95%ile concentrations. Incheon shows some fluctuations with positive with no significant trend, and Gyonggi province shows overall decreasing but not consistent. Student-t test shows 95% significant level of ERPDV effect in Seoul, but there exists no significant level greater than 90% in both Incheon, and Kyonggi province. Total annual averaged trend over the whole Seoul metropolitan area is estimated to lie in approximately $-2.9{\mu}g/m^3$/year in this study, implying the intimate involvement of ERPDV to a large extent. This is also suggesting that the further research cost-effectiveness of ERPDV with consideration of the long range transport process would be needed over the Seoul metropolitan area.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.136-143
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• 2006

The study was carried out to evaluate odor emission during storage time and quality of liquid slurry fertilizer along with three storage container types installed at farmer's fields in Cheorwon. Liquid slurry manure stored in the liquid-circulated or the air-injected tank was very homogeneous in concentration of nutritional elements because of well mixing operation, while nutritional concentration of the manure stored in the non-treated tank was significantly different from top to bottom in the tank, which may bring about partially irregular growth of plant after its application. The potential capacity of offensive odor emitted from liquid slurry manure stored in the liquid-circulated or the air-injected tank was much lower than that emitted from manure stored in the non-treated tank. Low potential capacity may less emit offensive odor after application of piggery liquid slurry on the field. The efficiency in oder to reduce odor emission from liquid manure was slightly higher in the liquid-circulated tank than the air-injected tank

• Journal of the Korean Society for Railway
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• v.19 no.6
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• pp.826-832
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• 2016

Reduced greenhouse gas effect induced by LID (Low Impact Development) technique application in tramway construction was quantified to increase environmental benefit as part of an overall economic assessment. In addition, by application of penetration type permeable blocks, the effect of the urban water cycle was examined as a special assessment item in the policy analysis. The carbon emission ratios of the permeable turf block, according to the turf coverage rate (100%, 50% granite, and 50% HDPE), against the concrete track construction were -184.7%, -127.3%, and -116.3%, respectively. The carbon emission ratios of permeable blocks with granite and HDPE were 30.1% and 52.5%. In the case of the penetration type permeable block, it was possible to store rainfall in the block until 90mm/hr of rainfall intensity (94.3% of water reserve rate); therefore, this method was effective as part of the urban water cycle system. As a result, an increased environmental benefit from LID technique application is expected in tramway construction; this needs to be considered as a policy factor in AHP analysis.