According to Yonhap News Agency, Federation of the Korean Industries (FKI) proposed that South Korea need to resort to nuclear energy to improve the proportion of renewable energies, based on the analysis from the Energy Transition Index Report 2021 published by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
According to the FKI, South Korea’s ETI score is 60.8, ranking 29th among 31 developed countries and 49th among all 115 countries.
As of 2019, South Korea’s coal power generation accounted for 40.8%, 27.8% higher than the average amount of developed countries (13.0%). The proportion of renewable energy power generation is 5.5%, 32.7% lower than the average proportion of developed countries (38.2%).
The proportion of coal power generation in South Korea decreased from 43.4% in 2010 to 40.8% in 2019, a decrease of only 2.6%. The per capita carbon emissions increased from 10.2 tons to 11.7 tons, an increase of 1.5 tons.
Due to the mountainous terrain and high population density, South Korea is short of land to build renewable energy power plants. Therefore, the FKI advocates that nuclear energy should be used for the country to transit to low-carbon economy.
