• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.31-57
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• 1991

Korean firms of all sizes, from virtually every industry, have used and are using the term "excessive competition" to describe the state of their industry and to call for government interventions. Moreover, the Korean government has frequently responded to such calls in various ways favorable to the firms, such as controlling entry, curbing capacity investments, or allowing collusion. Despite such interventions' impact on the overall efficiency on the Korean economy as well as on the wealth distribution among diverse groups of economic agents, the term "excessive competition", the basis for the interventions, has so far escaped rigorous scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to clarify the notion of "excessive competition" and "over-investment" which usually accompanies "excessive competition", and to examine the circumstances under which they might occur. We first survey the cases where the terms are most widely used and proceed to examine those cases to determine if competition is indeed excessive, and if so, what causes "excessive competition". Our main concern deals with the case in which the firms must make investment decisions that involve large sunk costs while facing uncertain demand. In order to analyze this case, we developed a two period model of capacity precommitment and the ensuing competition. In the first period, oligopolistic firms make capacity investments that are irreversible. Demand is uncertain in period 1 and only the distribution is known. Thus, firms must make investment decisions under uncertainty. In the second period, demand is realized, and the firms compete with quantity under realized demand and capacity constraints. In the above setting, we find that there is "no over-investment," en ante, and there is "no excessive competition," ex post. As measured by the information available in period 1, expected return from investment of a firm is non-negative, overall industry capacity does not exceed the socially optimal level, and competition in the second period yields an outcome that gives each operating firm a non-negative second period profit. Thus, neither "excessive competition" nor "over-investment" is possible. This result will generally hold true if there is no externality and if the industry is not a natural monopoly. We also extend this result by examining a model in which the government is an active participant in the game with a well defined preference. Analysis of this model shows that over-investment arises if the government cannot credibly precommit itself to non-intervention when ex post idle capacity occurs, due to socio-political reasons. Firms invest in capacities that exceed socially optimal levels in this case because they correctly expect that the government will find it optimal for itself to intervene once over-investment and ensuing financial problems for the firms occur. Such planned over-investment and ensuing government intervention are the generic problems under the current system. These problems are expected to be repeated in many industries in years to come, causing a significant loss of welfare in the long run. As a remedy to this problem, we recommend a non-intervention policy by the government which creates and utilizes uncertainty. Based upon an argument which is essentially the same as that of Kreps and Wilson in the context of a chain-store game, we show that maintaining a consistent non-intervention policy will deter a planned over-investment by firms in the long run. We believe that the results obtained in this paper has a direct bearing on the public policies relating to many industries including the petrochemical industry that is currently in the center of heated debates.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.61 no.3
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• pp.378-387
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• 2023

Petrochemical is an energy consuming industry that consumes about 30% of total industrial energy consumption and is a representative carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission source. Among them, the Naphtha Cracking Center (NCC), which produces ethylene, propylene, propane and mixed C4, consumes large amounts of energy and emits significant amounts of CO₂. For this reason, an integrated techno economic- environmental impact assessment aimed at reducing energy consumption and environmental impact factors is necessary to ensure efficiency in terms of economics and environment. This study aims to analyze the efficiency of the heat exchanger network used in the existing NCC base on the pinch analysis and select an improvement plan that can reduced energy consumption. In order to reduces the utility consumption in the process, an optimal heat exchanger network considering the high-temperature and low-temperature stream was derived, and the economic evaluation was conducted by considering the trade-off between the reduction in utility consumption and the increase in heat exchanger installation cost. In addition, an environmental impact assessment was conducted on the reduced CO₂ emission in consideration of the environmental aspect, and the economic environmental impact assessment used the payback period to recover the invested funds to come up with an energy saving plan that can be applied based on the actual process. As a result of considering the economic-environmental impact assessment, when the environmental impact assessment was not considered, it was 4.29 months, 3.21 months, and 3.39 months for each case, and when considering the environmental impact assessment, it was 4.24 months, 3.17 months, and 3.35 months for each case. These results appeared equally both when the environmental impact assessment was not include and when it was include. In addition, a sensitivity analysis was conducted for each case to determine how important factors affect the payback period. As a result of the sensitivity analysis, the cost of the heat exchanger was identified as a major factor influencing the overall cost.

• Economic and Environmental Geology
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• v.40 no.3 s.184
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• pp.263-275
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• 2007

The purpose of this study was to show the pollution characteristics of hazardous elements from roadside dust in the Gwangju city. We collected 47 samples from November to December in 2004 and separated four groups such as residential area, industrialized area, downtown area and heavy traffic area fer characteristics comparison on hazardous elements. Roadside dust mostly consisted of quartz, albite, microcline, muscovite in XRD analysis. Content of hazardous elements varied: As $3.4{\sim}11.9 ppm$, Cd $0.2{\sim}28.2 ppm$, Co $32{\sim}526 ppm$, Cr $25{\sim}526 ppm$, Cu $11{\sim}375 ppm$, Ni $14{\sim}247 ppm$, Pb $13{\sim}413 ppm$ and Zn $101{\sim}972 ppm$. Average contents of hazardous elements of Zn>Cu>Pb>Cr>Co>Ni>Cd. Content of hazardous elements was low in residential area, whereas that of heavy metal was much the same in both in heavy traffic area. Content of hazardous elements such as Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn was found to be particularly high in industrialized area. According to these results it was possible to presume that industrialized area was affected by industry activity such as machinery, petrochemical, automobile and electronics industry. The SEM analysis, detected Pb, Cr, Ni, and Fe particles in samples of industrialized area contaminated by industry activity. The correlation coefficient table resulted from the samples of roadside dust showed that there was same direction increase of content between elements. In other words, when the content of Cd increase, Cr and Ni increase, as Cr increase, Cu and Ni increase, as Cu increase Ni increase and Pb increase Zn increase. Based on these results it was possible to predict and interpret similar contamination patterns in this study.

• Environmental and Resource Economics Review
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.257-290
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• 2005

Korean energy use in industrial sector has increased more rapidly than other sectors during 1980~2000 periods. Relatively higher increases in industrial sector energy consumption raise questions whether government policy of rationalization of industrial energy use has been effective. In this study, we use 80-85-90 and 90-95-00 constant price input-output table to analyze increases in industrial energy use. Using an adjusted version of structural decomposition model introduced by Chen and Rose (1990), we decompose Changes of energy use into 17 elements. We classify entire industry sector into 32 sectors including four energy sectors (coal and coal products, refined petroleum, electricity and town gas). We then analyze changes of energy use by industrial level to check differences among industrial energy demand structures. Finally, we compare three industries, electronic product manufacturing, metal manufacturing and construction, that represent technology and capital intensive, energy and material intensive and labor and capital intensive industry. As results, we find that high energy using industries make the most effort to reduce energy use. Primary metal, petrochemical and mon-metal industries show improvements in elements such as energy and material productivity, energy and material imports, energy substitution and material substitutions towards energy saving. These results imply that although those industries are heavy users of energy, they put the best effort to reduce energy use relative to other industries. We find various patterns of change in industrial energy use at industrial level. To reduce energy use, electronic product manufacturing industry needs more effort to improve technological change element while construction industry needs more effort to improve material input structure element.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.63-70
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• 2010

Transition metal based spent catalysts (Ni-Mo and Co-Mo), which were scrapped from the petrochemical industry, were reused for the removal processes of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Especially the optimum regeneration procedures were determined using the removal efficiency of VOCs. In this work, the spent Ni-Mo and spent Co-Mo catalysts were pretreated with different physic-chemical treatment procedure: 1) acid aqueous solution, 2) alkali solution, 3) chemical agent and 4) steam. The various characterization methods of spent and its regenerated catalysts were performed using nitrogen adsorption, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive spectrometry (EDS). It was found that all spent catalysts were found to be potentially applicable catalysts for catalytic oxidation of benzene. The experimental results also indicated that among the employed physico-chemical pretreatment methods, the oxalic acid aqueous (0.1 N, $C_2H_2O_4$) pretreatment appeared to be the most efficient in increasing the catalytic activity, although the catalytic activity of spent Ni-Mo and spent Co-Mo catalysts in the oxidation of benzene were greatly dependent on the pretreatment conditions. The pretreated spent catalysts at optimum condition could be also applied for removing other aromatic compounds (Toluene/Xylene).

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.633-641
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• 2015

Several complex processes that are employed in industries, such as shipping, power plants, and the petrochemical industry, involve time-varying behavior as well as strong nonlinear behavior during operation. The fixed-parameter proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers have difficulty in dealing with control problems that occur in such processes. In this paper, we propose a method of designing a nonlinear PID controller for industrial processes that exhibit a large number of nonlinearities and time-varying behavior. The gains of the nonlinear PID controller are characterized by a simple nonlinear function of the error and/or error rate depending on the process set-point and output. We tune the user-defined parameters using a genetic algorithm by minimizing the integral of time absolute error (ITAE) index. We verify the effectiveness of the proposed method by performing a comparison of the proposed method and two other nonlinear and adaptive methods that are employed for reference tracking, disturbance-rejection performances, and robustness to parameter changes on a continuously stirred tank reactor.

• Journal of the KSME
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• v.34 no.11
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• pp.845-858
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• 1994

1988년 이전에는 한국의 석유화학공장은 다른 나라에 비하여 관리상태나 손해상황이 양호한 공 장으로 여겨져 거의 안전도조사(underwriting survey)가 실시되지 않았으나 1989년 이후부터 보험사고가 급격히 증가, 보험금 지급이 많아져 위험조사를 실시한 후 보험을 인수하게 되었다. 일반적으로 석유화학공업의 내용연수는 15년에서 20년으로 보고 있으며 미국, 일본 등 선진국 에서도 건설한지 20년을 전후해서 사고가 다발한다는 점은 국내 석유화학공장의 안전성 확보대 책에서 중요한 점을 시사한다. 석유화학공업의 안전성 확보대책으로서 해외재보험자가 요구하고 있는 "경영전반적인 위험관리"를 도입 추진하여야 할 것으로 사료된다. 여기에는 사전적 손해 방지대책을 포함하는 위험통제는 기본적으로 이루어져야 하며 사후적 대책인 위험재무도 경영 효율이 극대화되도록 하여야 한다. 그러나 최근 들어 국내공장의 사고빈발로 해외재보험자들이 재물손해의 자기부담금액(deductible)인상(business interuption)의 Time Excess연장(7일에서3 0일) 등의 보험조건을 강화하고 있다. 따라서 외국의 사고 경험에 비추어 국내 플랜트의 내용연 수가 거의 다 되어서 사고발생위험이 잠재하고 있고 석유화학공업의 특성상 사고빈도는 낮으나 손해규모가 대규모이고 국가경제에 기여하는 비율이 타산업에 비해 월등히 크다는 점 등에서 안전대책에 대한 경영자의 관심제고를 밑바탕으로 한 위험관리의 정착화, 안전기준 등의 국제 수준으로 향상 및 전문기술인력 확보를 통하여 사고발생 억제에 대하여 소홀히 해서는 안된다고 사료된다.안된다고 사료된다.작 원리 및 제조방법에 대하여 기술한다. 2차원 그래픽의 기능만으로도 충분한 역할을 수행할 수 있지만, 그 다음 단계인 기본설계나 상세설계와의 자료 공유를 생각하면, 3차원 그래 픽이 필요하다. 다만, 3차원 그래픽 기능을 추가하기 위해 많은 노력이 요구되는데, 현재 PHIG S와 x-window가 결합되어 PEX라는 라이브러리로 개발되고 있으므로 차후의 연구에 포함될 수 있을 것이며, 이 글에서는 간단한 2차원 그래픽 기능만을 이용하였다. 앞으로 PEX의 기능을 적 절히 구사하면, 좋은 효과를 볼 수 있을 것이다. 279cm 되게 하고 선축은 팬톰의 27번 절편과 28번 절편의 접변과 최대 전단면의 교차선과 일치시켜 양방향에서 15분씩 조사하여 전단면에서 선량을 측정하였다. 팬톰내 선축상 중앙점의 선량을 기준으로 다른 부위의 선량을 비교하였다. 두경부와 복부, 폐의 하반에서 선량의 차이는 $\pm$ 10% 이내였고, 폐의 상반과 어깨와 골반 부위에서 선량은 10%이상 저선량을 보였다. 특히 어깨부위에는 30%이상 저선량을 보였다. 이로부터 서울대병원과 유사한 조건에서 코발트로 전신조사하는 경우에는 폐나 두경부에 대응하는 조직보상체를 이용하기보다는 어깨부위에 선량을 추가하는 것이 바람직할 것이라고 생각한다.alpha$ 부분공간들의 합공간 역시 on-semistrbtifiable over $\alpha$ 하다. 6. 폐연속 net-cevering 함수에 의하여 cn-semistratifiable over $\alpha$ 성질이 보존된다. 보잘것이 없었고, 현재에도

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.58 no.2
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• pp.209-223
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• 2020

Executions of SCM in a chemical company of which divisions produce petrochemicals, compounds, batteries, IT material and medicine directly affect their own profit. Execution level of SCM or optimization is very important. This work presents activities of SCM and optimization of inefficient issues in several industrial divisions using mathematical optimization method. The meaning is not only academic research but also making a useful tool which active partner deals with in his work. It is explained how to do beforehand and afterward optimization problem. The benefits are mentioned in the sections. The first of examples would be cover supply plan optimization, optimal profit business plan, and scheduling of a stretching process of polarizer based on minimizing raw material loss in polarizer production. The second example would be cover the optimization of production/packaging plans to maximize productivity of Poly Olefin processes, and the third example is minimization of transition loss in the production of battery electrodes. The fourth example would be cover scheduling of vessel approaching to berth. Because transportation of large portion of raw material and products of petrochemical industry is dealt with vessel, scheduling of vessel approaching to berth is important at the shore of large difference of tide. The final example would be scheduling problem to minimization of change over time of ABS semi products.

• International Journal of Fluid Machinery and Systems
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.40-46
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• 2017

Small valves including ball valves, gate valves and butterfly valves have been adopted in the fields of steam power generation, petrochemical industry, carriers, and oil tankers. Butterfly valves have normally been applied to fields where in narrow places installing the existing valves such as gate valves and ball valves have proven difficult due to the surrounding area and the heavier of these valves. Butterfly valves are used to control the mass flow of the piping system under low pressure by rotating the circular disk installed inside. The butterfly valve is benefitted by having simpler structure in which the flow is controlled by rotating the disc circular plate along the center axis, whereas the weight of the valve is light compared to the gate valve and ball valve above-mentioned, as there is no additional bracket supporting the valve body. The manufacturing company needs to acquire the performance and life test equipment, in the case of adopting the improving factors to detect leakage and damage on the seat of the valve disc. However, small companies, which are manufacturing the industrial valves, normally sell their products without the life test, which is the reliability test and environment test, because of financial and manpower problems. Furthermore, the failure mode analysis of the products failed in the field is likewise problematic as there is no system collecting the failure data on sites for analyzing the failures of valves. The analyzing and researching process is not arranged systematically because of the financial problem. Therefore this study firstly tried to obtain information about the failure data from the sites, analyzed the failure mode based on the field data collected from the customers, and then obtained field data using measuring equipment. Secondly, we designed and manufactured the performance and life test equipment which also have the real time monitoring system with the naked eye for the butterfly valves. The concept of this equipment can also be adopted by other valves, such as the ball valve, gate valve, and various others. It can be applied to variously sized valves, ranging from 25 mm to large sized valves exceeding 3000 mm. Finally, this study carries out the life test with square wave pressure, using performance and life test equipment. The performance found out that the failures from the real time monitoring system were good. The results of this study can be expanded to the other valves like ball valves, gate valves, and control valves to find out the failure mode using the real time monitoring system for durability and performance tests.

• Analytical Science and Technology
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1041-1051
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• 2003

Neutron induced prompt gamma activation analysis (PGAA) offers a nondestructive, sensitive and relatively rapid method for the determination of trace and major elements and is proven to be convenient for online analysis of minerals, metals, coal, cement, petrochemical, coating, paper as well as many other materials and products. The technique has found many uses in medicine, industry, research, security and the detection of contraband items. This report reviews the present status and future trends of the PGAA techniques. Requirements for the system are neutron source, high resolution HPGe detectors with a high-voltage power supply, an amplifier, analog-to-digital converter, and a multichannel analyzer for the detection and measurement of prompt ${\gamma}$-ray emit form the neutron capture elements. Introducing a ${\gamma}$-${\gamma}$ coincidence system also improves the quality of the ${\gamma}$-ray spectrum by suppressing the background created from the Compton scattering of high energy prompt ${\gamma}$-rays. A PGAA system using a $^{252}Cf$ neutron source is currently under construction for the on-line measurement of several elements in aqueous samples at KAERI. The system can be applied for the detection of chemical weapons and explosives as well as various narcotics.