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Sunday, December 28, 2008

S.Korea to invest $28.5 billion in new power plants

 

S.Korea to invest $28.5 bln in new power plants | Markets | Reuters

SEOUL, Dec 28 (Reuters) - South Korea plans to invest 37 trillion won ($28.5 billion) from 2009 to 2022 on new power plants, including 12 new nuclear plants, to boost fuel efficiency and cut emissions, Seoul's energy ministry said on Sunday.

South Korea, the world's fifth-largest crude importer, will also build seven new coal plants, 11 LNG plants and one heavy fuel plant by 2022, but it will get rid of the existing three coal plants, six LNG plants and 13 heavy fuel units to boost efficiency, it said in a statement.

"The plan is to generate more low carbon power while decreasing the use of high-priced reserves such as LNG and coal. Under the plan, the fuel cost will be about 56 percent lower than this year," the ministry said.

The total number of nuclear power units will rise to 32, or 32.92 million kilowatts, by 2022 and account for 48 percent of the country's total power generation, from 34 percent this year.

LNG, which is the most expensive fuel, will account for just 6 percent of total power generation in 2022, down from the current 22 percent.

The overall electricity power capacity will increase to 100.89 million kilowatts by 2022, up from 71.36 million by end-2008. ($1=1298.9 Won) (Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Lincoln Feast)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it just me, or do the northeast asian nations seem about 10 times smarter than european nations in how they run their economies?

A plan that increases production by what 40%, and decreases fuel costs by 70%.. and substantially decreases carbon emissions.

And the cost of 28.5$ billion, that is pocket change compared to what we are spending bailing out our bankers.

--aa2

Unknown said...

Remember that these Asian economies have more central control as well. This is great for infrastructure, but can bite you in other economic areas. Also, their legal systems would likely not work in the US or Western Europe. One thing that can be used in the west is the use of standard designs and maintaining an experienced construction and startup crew that can shorten the construction time.