• 청정기술
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• 제27권3호
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• pp.269-274
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• 2021

바이오에너지는 탄소중립을 추구하는 방안 중 하나로 간주되고 있다. 그러나 수확된 식물 바이오매스를 연소하면 필연적으로 대기 중 이산화탄소는 일정기간 동안 화석을 연소할 때보다 더 많아진다. 본 논문에서는 이 탄소부채의 총량과 상환기간을 예측하고 최소화하는 방법을 제안한다. 사례연구로는 현재 사용되고 있는 화석연료를 바이오매스로 일시에 전환할 경우에 대한 탄소순환 영향평가를 수행한다. 이를 통해 탄소중립 개념의 근본적인 취약성을 지적한다. 바이오에너지의 지속가능성을 위한 실행방안으로는 숲 면적 감소분에 비례하는 추가식림 및 숲 질량 증가분에 비례하는 추가수확 공식을 제안하였다. 최적화 결과, 탄소부채 상환기간은 약 70년, 대기 중 이산화탄소는 최대 50% 이상, 정상상태에서 3% 증가가 예상된다. 이는 이론적으로 예측한 최상의 결과이며 실제로는 이보다 나쁠 것으로 추정된다. 따라서 바이오매스는 진정으로 탄소 중립적이지 않으며, 화석연료의 대체에너지원으로서 부적합하다. 본 연구에서 제안된 방법은 이미 사용 중인 바이오에너지의 현재 및 미래 탄소부채 최소화를 통해 탄소중립으로의 접근에 기여할 수 있을 것으로 예상된다.

• Nuclear Engineering and Technology
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• 제54권9호
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• pp.3299-3309
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• 2022

Nuclear energy has the potential to play an influential role in energy transition efforts than is now anticipated by many countries. Realizing sustainable human development and reducing global climate crises will become more difficult without significantly increasing nuclear power. This paper aims to probe the role of nuclear energy, external debt, and financial globalization in sustaining human development and environmental conditions simultaneously in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries. This study applied a battery of second-generation estimation approaches over the period from 1990 to 2019. These methods are useful and robust to cross-countries dependencies, slope heterogeneity, parameters endogeneity, and serial correlation that are ignored in conventional approaches to generate more comprehensive and reliable estimates. The empirical findings indicate that nuclear energy and financial globalization contribute to human development, whereas external debt inhibits it. Similarly, financial globalization accelerates ecological deterioration, but nuclear energy and external debt promote environmental sustainability. Moreover, the study reveals bidirectional feedback causalities between human development, carbon emissions and nuclear energy consumption. The study offers useful policy guidance on accomplishing sustainable and inclusive development in BRICS countries.

• East Asian Economic Review
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• 제18권3호
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• pp.277-299
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• 2014

Climate negotiations have been going on for the last two decades and the awareness for impacts of climate change has improved substantially. However, the trends of global $CO_2$ emissions did not reveal any encouraging signs, with developing countries emitting even more $CO_2$ and industrialized nations showing no signs of reducing emissions to below their 1990 levels. In order to meet the ambitious targets set by the Stern report for the next two decades, it is important to find new and path-breaking approaches to climate change. This paper attempts to analyze the use of carbon/development space historically, at present and in the future with a focus on equity. Trends analysis focuses on the last two decades (Post Rio) and the carbon budget based analysis considers a period of 1850-2050. Industrialized countries are found to have significantly overshot their budgeted allocation for the last 160 years. Both the developing and industrialized countries are overshooting the present budget estimates based on world per capita budget for the next forty years and proportional to the population of each country. It is important for the industrialized countries to bring down their emissions to meet their carbon budgets while the developing countries use their development space as a guideline for their development path. Furthermore, this paper presents aggressive and regressive scenarios for the industrialized countries to compensate for the climate debt they have created.

• 신재생에너지
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• 제20권1호
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• pp.145-174
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• 2024

Addressing climate change necessitates evidence-based policies grounded in science. The use of forest biomass for energy production is based on a broad scientific consensus at the international level. However, some environmental groups in South Korea are opposing this system of energy production. Through this study, the authors aim to reduce unnecessary confusion and foster an atmosphere conducive to meaningful evidence-based policies. We have classified the issue into eight categories: biological carbon cycle, carbon debt, nature-based solutions, air emissions, cascading principles and sustainability certification, forest environmental impacts, climate change litigation, and the behavior of environmental groups and public perception. Consequently, the following key points were derived: (1) the actions of some environmental groups seem to follow a similar pattern to denialist behavior that denies climate change and climate science; (2) the quality of evidence for campaigns that oppose the use of forest biomass for energy production is low, with a tendency to overgeneralize information, high uncertainty, and difficulty in finding new claims.; (3) most of the public believes that forest biomass energy is necessary, and the governments of major countries are aware of its importance. Significantly, Forest biomass for energy is based on an overwhelming level of scientific consensus recognized internationally.