• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.31 no.1
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• pp.113-139
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• 2022

The iron and steel industry is a manufacturing industry with the largest greenhouse gases emissions and has a great ripple effect on the national economy as a core material industry. This study internationally compared the decoupling patterns of greenhouse gases emissions in the iron and steel industry from 1990 to 2019, focusing on Korea, Japan, and Germany. In particular, unlike previous studies that considered only fuel combustion emissions, this study considered all fuel combustion emissions, industrial process emissions, and indirect emissions from the use of electricity and heat. As a result of the analysis, Korea is interpreted as expansive coupling, Japan as decoupling, and Germany as unclear. Therefore, the decoupling path that the Korean iron and steel industry should take should not be in Germany, but in the form of seeking a decoupling method similar to Japan or more effective than Japan. In addition, this study considered the characteristics of the iron and steel industry as much as possible and presented the causes of the decoupling analysis results and implications for the Korean iron and steel industry through comparison with Japan and Germany. In particular, four factors were suggested as factors which has promoted decoupling in Japan: high value-added of Japanese iron and steel products, development of energy efficiency technology in the Japanese iron and steel industry, strategic M&A of the Japanese iron and steel industry, and maintaining competitiveness according to the closed distribution structure of Japanese iron and steel products. The Korean iron and steel industry should also use the case of Japan as a benchmark to further increase added value through quality uprade and product diversification of iron and steel products, while at the same time making efforts to fundamentally reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the development of new technologies.

• Land and Housing Review
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.307-313
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• 2011

This study was aimed to suggest a management strategy of GHG emissions for the public organizations in land and housing costruction sector. As public organizations' businesses are characterized as 'public' and 'comprehensive', these characteristics should be considered in scoping emissions, setting-up reduction target, building GHG inventory, and establishing management system. Since public organizations' activities in construction sector involve a wide range of social infrastructure construction projects, it is not easy to account their actions to reduce GHG emissions quantitatively. Therefore, this study suggested that a twofold approach is suitable for public organizations in construction area, classifying the measurable reductions and the immeasurable actions according to the their business characteristics. To give a concrete example, a GHG emission management system for the Korea Land and Housing Corporation (LH) was proposed.

• KIEAE Journal
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.29-38
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• 2012

The current building energy efficiency rating certification regulation on apartment houses evaluates only the saving rate of energy consumed during operation, i.e. use, of a building, but doesn't consider the energy consumptions and environmental load($CO_2$) emissions occurring during the whole lifetime of a building. So this study calculated the energy consumptions and environmental load emissions occurring during the whole lifetime of a building, selected reference schemes and alternative items by design variables to present a design draft considering energy efficiency and environmental performance, and evaluated the total cost by combining and calculating its direct cost(material and heating cost) and indirect cost(environmental cost), for an existing apartment house as an evaluation object. As a result of analysis, the change of heating cost by alternative items of design variables showed a 4~8% change rate compared to the reference scheme, and the material cost of design variable 7 showed a maximum 4.4 times change rate in the alternative plan 6 compared to the reference scheme. The environmental cost showed a similar change rate to the material cost change rate in general, but showed a similar environmental cost change rate to the heating cost change rate in case of design variables 4-1, 4-2, 7.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Building Construction Conference
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• 2022.11a
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• pp.125-126
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• 2022

As environmental problems around the world become serious, Korea has also raised the greenhouse gas reduction in the building sector to 32.8% compared to 2018, and efforts to reduce carbon in buildings are expanding. Recently, research is being actively conducted to reduce carbon in the long term by expanding the scope of greenhouse gas indirect emissions (Scope3), and even within the domestic Green Standard for Energy and Environmental Design(G-SEED) by quantitatively evaluating the environmental impact of buildings during the entire life cycle. However, it is difficult to accurately evaluate the carbon emission of the transportation process by assuming the material transport distance in the evaluation of the Life Cycle Assessment(LCA). Therefore, in this study, the main building materials of the building were selected through case evaluation and the carbon emission of the material transport process was derived based on the actual transport distance, and this was compared and analyzed with the theoretical LCA results.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.378-384
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• 2019

In the food wastewater treatment facilities, the water quality improvement effect and the greenhouse gas emission amount followed by the change in electricity usage through a change of the aeration tank ventilation system were evaluated. also, the amount of greenhouse gas emission followed by the change in electricity usage through the change of the sludge dewatering, storage, transporting method was also evaluated. The total GHG emission from food wastewater treatment facility improvement were divided into direct emissions from the treatment processes and indirect ones from electricity usage. The water quality improvement effect of wastewater treatment plant was found to be 63.3% for BOD removal rate, 42.0% for COD removal rate, 71.0% for SS removal rate and 39.6% for T-N removal rate. and according to the results of calculating output by applying both direct emissions of greenhouse gas (Scope 1) and the indirect emission (Scope 2) of greenhouse gas followed by changes in power consumption. It was estimated that there was a total of 276.0tCO2eq./yr(7.5%) greenhouse gas reduction effect from 3,668.8tCO2eq./yr before improvement to 3,392.8tCO2eq./yr after improvement. In this result is not due to the effects of water quality improvement of emission source, but because the reduction in electricity use has reduced the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.496-501
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• 2012

Thirty-five available feeds were fermented in vitro in order to investigate their soluble total organic carbon (TOCs) and methane ($CH_4$) production rate. A fermentation reactor was designed to capture the $CH_4$ gas emitted and to collect liquor from the reactor during in vitro fermentation. The results showed that $CH_4$ production rate greatly varied among feeds with different ingredients. The lowest $CH_4$-producing feeds were corn gluten feed, brewer's grain, and orchard grass among the energy, protein, and forage feed groups, respectively. Significant differences (p<0.05) were found in digestibility, soluble total organic carbon (TOCs), and $CH_4$ emissions among feeds, during 48 h of in vitro fermentation. Digestibility and TOCs was not found to be related due to different fermentation pattern of each but TOCs production was directly proportional to $CH_4$ production (y = 0.0076x, $r^2$ = 0.83). From this in vitro study, TOCs production could be used as an indirect index for estimation of $CH_4$ emission from feed ingredients.

• Journal of Environmental Health Sciences
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• v.42 no.6
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• pp.375-384
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• 2016

Objectives: This paper analyzes the intersection of tort law and environmental health in a recent court decision. Methods: This paper analyzes Supreme Court Decision 2011Da7437, Decided on September 4, 2014 and related lower court decisions. Results: The plaintiffs sought financial compensation from the defendants, arguing that air pollutants in gases emitted by vehicles produced by the defendants had caused them to acquire respiratory diseases. The district court highlighted the need to mitigate the burden of proof for the plaintiffs, but proceeded to review whether the plaintiffs proved the actual toxicity levels of the air pollutants, whether the defendant's vehicles were the main source of the emissions, the plaintiff's level of exposure to the pollutants, and causation between the emissions and the injury. By doing so, the district court required the plaintiffs to prove both indirect and direct facts of causation, increasing burden of proof for plaintiffs. The appellate court upheld the district court's decision, adding that the defendant's conduct did not constitute an illegal act because it did not violate the emissions standards set by environmental law. The Supreme Court upheld the appellate court's decision, reasoning that the epidemiological evidence cannot establish a direct causation for diseases that lack specificity. Conclusion: This case demonstrates that discussions in environmental health have significance in tort lawsuits. For each fact that the plaintiffs and defendants attempted to prove, environmental health research studies were offered as evidence. In addition, the courts decided the legality of the defendant's conduct based on emission standards set by environmental law.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.61 no.1
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• pp.85-93
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• 2019

The objective of this study is to assess the environmental effect of the reclaimed land drainage method using oyster shell through the Life cycle $CO_2$ assessment, and to evaluate the applicability in South Korea. In this Study, the life cycle $CO_2$ emissions of oyster shell (OS) and crushed stone (CS, as avoided product) were assessed and compared. The Life Cycle Assessment method was used for quantitative evaluation of direct or indirect environmental effects of OS recycling. $CO_2$ was selected as the evaluation target material, and the scope of assessment includes the acquisition of materials, processing, transportation, construction phases. Compared to using CS, 77.0% of $CO_2$ emissions in acquisition and processing, 47.0% in transportation and 6.5% in construction phase were reduced, respectively by using of OS. The maximum transportation distance of OS was estimated according to transportation distance of CS. OS has environmental advantages than CS within about 26 - 101 km from the source. OS was found to be applicable to reclaimed lands up to 810 ha, 3,910 ha from Tongyeong and Yeosu, respectively. In addition, the amount of OS that could be used as drainage material for reclaimed land was much higher than annual OS production of South Korea. Therefore, it is considered that OS is sufficient to be used as drainage material for reclaimed land in South Korea.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.279-309
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• 2009

Greenhouse gas emissions should be precisely forecast to reduce the emissions from industrial production processes. This study calculated the direct and indirect $CO_2$ emission intensities of 401 industries using the Input-Output tables 2003 and statistical data on the amount of energy use. This study had some limitations in drawing study findings because overseas data were used given the lack of domestic data. Other limiting factors included the oil distribution problems in the oil refinery sector, re-review of carbon neutral, and insufficient consideration of waste treatment. Nonetheless, this study is very meaningful since the direct and indirect $CO_2$ emission intensities of 401 industries were calculated. Specifically, this study considered from the zero-waste perspective the effects of waste, which attract interest worldwide since coke gas and gas from the steel industry are obtained as byproducts for the first time in Korea. According to the results of the analysis of $CO_2$ emission intensity per industry, typical industries whose indirect $CO_2$ emission intensity is high include crude steel making, Remicon, steel wire rods & track rail, cast iron, and iron reinforcing rods & bar steel. These industries produce products using the raw materials produced in the industrial sector whose $CO_2$ emission intensity is high. The representative industries whose direct $CO_2$ emission intensity is high include cement, pig iron, lime & plaster products, andcoal-based compounds. These industries extract raw ore from nature and refine them into raw materials that are useful in other industries. The findings in this study can be effectively used for the following case: estimation of target $CO_2$ emission reduction level reflecting each industrial sector's characteristics, calculation of potential emission reduction of each policy to reduce $CO_2$ emissions, identification of a firm's $CO_2$ emission level, and setting of the target level of emission reduction. Moreover, the findings in this study can be utilized widely in fields such as System of integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting(SEEA) and Material Flow Analysis(MFA) as the current topic of research in Korea.

• KSCE Journal of Civil and Environmental Engineering Research
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• v.43 no.1
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• pp.63-69
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• 2023

'Carbon-neutrality Assessment based on Technology Application Scenario (CATAS)' provides an analysis of greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction effectiveness when applying carbon-neutrality technology to areas such as energy conversion, transportation, and buildings at certain spatial levels. As for the development scope of the model, GHG emission sources were analyzed for direct GHG emissions, and the boundary between direct and indirect emissions are set according to the spatial scope. The technical scope included nine technologies and forest sinks in the transition sector that occupies the largest portion of GHG emissions in the 2050 carbon neutral scenario. The carbon neutrality rate evaluation methodology consists of four steps: ① analysis of GHG emissions, ② prediction of energy production according to technology introduction, ③ calculation of GHG reduction, and ④ calculation of carbon neutrality rate. After the web-based CATAS-BASIC was developed, an analysis was conducted by applying the new and renewable energy distribution goals presented in the ｢2050 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Promotion Plan｣ of the Seoul Metropolitan Government. As a result of applying solar power, hydrogen fuel cell, and hydrothermal, the introduction of technology reduced 0.43 million tCO₂eq of 1.49 million tCO₂eq, which is the amount of emissions from the conversion sector in Seoul, and the carbon neutrality rate in the conversion sector was analyzed to be 28.94 %.