• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.16 no.3
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• pp.575-605
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• 2007

Korea's tidelands policy IS examined and criticized in the paper. Korea's major tidelands in the west coast might disappear within a decade. The anachronistic development IS driven by the political interest group, forming coalition for reclamation and busily fulfilling its own profits under the facade of public good and regional development. But all regions of the world have been gradually scrapping the massive reclamation projects since the 1970's and active movements to reverse the reclamation and restore the nature are on the rise. In 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to suspend the construction of the dam and to protect the snail darter despite that over 100 million dollars had been injected. This court ruling became famous and caused the American public to change their perception about the environment. In the Netherlands, following a prolonged discussion on pros and cons of reclamation, open type seawall was adopted to strike a balance among the available alternatives. Japan's Ministry of Environment was praised for forming the National Wetland Committee in order to designate 20 new Ramsar sites by 2008, with an objective to reach 33 designated Ramsar sites. Away from the large-scale reclamation projects, Korea has to move towards smaller-scale projects focusing on the knowledege intensive and circular economy society that are more in harmony with the environment.

• KOREAN JOURNAL OF PACKAGING SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 2022

With the spread of COVID-19 worldwide, non-face-to-face services have grown rapidly, but at the same time, the problem of plastic waste is getting worse. Accordingly, eco-friendly policies such as carbon neutrality and sustainable circular economy are being promoted worldwide. Due to the high demand for eco-friendly products, the packaging industry is trying to develop eco-friendly packaging materials using PLA and PBAT and create new business models. On the other hand, Ulva australis occurs in large quantities in the southern seas of Korea and off the coast of Jeju Island, causing marine environmental problems. In this study, lactic acid was produced through dilute acid pretreatment, enzymatic saccharification, and fermentation processes to utilize Ulva australis as a new alternative energy raw material. In general, seaweeds vary in carbohydrate content and sugar composition depending on the species, harvest location, and time. Seaweed is mainly composed of polysaccharides such as cellulose, alginate, mannan, and xylan, but does not contain lignin. It is difficult to expect high extraction yield of the complex polysaccharide constituting Ulva australis with only one process. However, the fusion process of dilute acid and enzymatic saccharification presented in this study can extract most of the sugars contained in Ulva australis. Therefore, the fusion process is considered to be able to expect high lactic acid production yield when a commercial-scale production process is established.

• Clean Technology
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.163-173
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• 2022

Research and development of biofuels as one of the means to mitigate global warming and to avoid fossil fuel depletion has occurred for more than 30 years. However, there has only been limited distribution of a few first- and second-generation biofuels, and widespread supply and consumption of biofuels is still far from a reality. Although a relatively recently studied third-generation biofuel derived from seaweed biomass has been shown to have many advantages, it is yet to be deployed in commercial-scale seaweed biorefineries. This review paper examines the advantages and disadvantages of seaweed biorefineries for the entire value chain covering from seaweed and its cultivation to biofuel production based on an extensive literature search and the author's experience of conducting feasibility studies pertaining to seaweed biorefineries for over 10 years. For this purpose, the literature survey will cover the current status of seaweed production and its research and development worldwide, conversion technologies for biofuel production from seaweed based on bench-scale experiments, and large-scale techno-economic feasibility studies for seaweed conversion to biofuels and bioenergy. In addition, the main problems expected with the commercialization of seaweed-based biofuels will be identified. Finally, the current status of seaweed biorefinery technology and the author's views on its promising future will be summarized.