A Chinese billionaire is teaming up with the most powerful man in the U.S. Senate to build a solar plant in a dusty corner of Nevada, even as officials accuse China of driving energy companies out of business by dumping cheap components on the American market.
ENN Group (ENNGZ) plans a manufacturing and generating facility worth $5 billion, more than all Chinese investment in the U.S. combined last year, in Laughlin, Nevada, a town pockmarked with foreclosed properties and the skeleton of a 14-story resort abandoned when the project went bankrupt.
Wang Yusuo, chairman of ENN Group, signs an agreement at the U.S.-China Strategic Forum on Clean Energy Cooperation in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 18, 2011. Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
China's ENN Plans $5 Billion Solar Plant in Nevada
April 3 (Bloomberg) -- Steve Sisolak, a Clark County, Nevada Commissioner, talks with Bloomberg's Jennifer Oldham about ENN Group's plans to build a solar project near Laughlin, Nevada. ENN's project highlights the growing clout of Chinese capital in the U.S. ENN founder Wang Yusuo, one of China's richest men, has enlisted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on the deal. (Source: Bloomberg)
Enlarge image Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, speaks at the Energy Independence 2020 Forum at NASDAQ Market Place on Dec. 12, 2005, in New York. ENN founder Wang Yusuo, one of China’s richest men, has enlisted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to win incentives including land 113 miles (182 kilometers) southeast of Las Vegas that ENN is buying for $4.5 million, or less than one-eighth of the $38.6 million assessors say it is worth. Photographer: Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg
Enlarge image Solyndra LLC Solar Panels
Solar panel prices have plunged almost 50 percent in the past 15 months, leading to the bankruptcy of equipment maker Solyndra LLC, with $535 million in U.S. government loan guarantees, and job cuts at other alternative-energy companies. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
Company founder Wang Yusuo, one of China’s richest men, has joined with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to win incentives including land 113 miles (182 kilometers) southeast of Las Vegas that ENN is buying for $4.5 million, or less than one-eighth of the $38.6 million assessors say it is worth. The project has produced legal work for Reid’s son, Rory, a lawyer at a Las Vegas firm that gave the Nevada Democrat more than $40,000 in the past three election cycles.
“This is counter to most logic,” said Thomas Maslin, an analyst at IHS Emerging Energy Research in Washington, D.C. “It doesn’t make sense in terms of supply and demand. The likely rationale is that because they’re building on public land they need to justify somehow the price through job creation and high- tech manufacturing.”
Growing Clout
ENN’s project highlights the growing clout of Chinese capital in this country. Chinese investment in the U.S. jumped to 66 deals worth $4.5 billion in 2011, up from just 11 deals worth $146 million in 2003, according to the Rhodium Group, a New York-based firm that researches trade with China. While it is rising quickly, that total is still far lower than countries such as Switzerland, whose $42 billion infusion makes it the top foreign investor, according to a July report from the U.S. Commerce Department.
Solar panel prices have plunged almost 50 percent globally in the past 15 months, leading to the bankruptcy of equipment maker Solyndra LLC, with $535 million in U.S. government loan guarantees, and job cuts at other solar manufacturers. The Obama administration, under pressure to curb Chinese companies’ trade practices, imposed preliminary duties on March 20 of as much as 4.73 percent on solar equipment imported from China. Tariffs may prompt more Chinese companies to move their manufacturing facilities to the U.S., Maslin said.
ENN’s Nevada plan calls for solar panel manufacturing and generation facilities and an eco-community people can visit -- part of what Reid proposes as an alternative-energy hub in a March 12 report called “Playing to Win in Clean Energy.”
Energy for California
Reid, 72, a Nevada Democrat who has led the U.S. Senate since 2007, promotes the project planned by ENN, based in Langfang, Hebei Province, as a way to put thousands of people back to work as his state struggles to overcome one of the nation’s highest foreclosure rates.
“It will generate the electricity California must have in just a few years -- 30 percent of all electricity must come from renewable resources,” Reid said during a March 12 conference call with reporters. “This project is close to California. It’s within walking distance.”
Plans for ENN’s Nevada facility say it may eventually generate about 700 megawatts of electricity, more than 100 times the output of the company’s biggest solar operation now, in Germany. If actually built at that size, it would be 12 times bigger than the largest solar power plant currently in operation in the U.S., Sempra Energy’s 58-megawatt Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility, and also larger than the biggest facility under construction, the 550-megawatt Topaz Solar Farm in Santa Margarita, California, with financing from Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co.
Creating Jobs
The solar complex could create as many as 2,505 jobs during construction through 2023, according to an economic impact study by Las Vegas-based Applied Analysis, a market research consulting firm.
“Other solar companies said they could produce electricity, but they didn’t have anything that would offer a permanent number of good jobs -- ENN’s manufacturing component will,” said Jacquelyne A. Brady, Laughlin’s town manager, in an interview.
Both Rory Reid, 49, and former Nevada Governor Richard Bryan, attorneys at the Lionel Sawyer & Collins law firm, have worked on the project, according to documents and Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak.
Payments to Reid
The firm gave $40,650 individually and through its political action committee to Senator Reid over the past three election cycles, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan firm that researches the role of campaign contributions in public policy. Lionel Sawyer’s political action committee also contributed $2,000 in 2010 and $5,000 in 2008 to the Searchlight Leadership Fund, a political action committee that lists Reid as an affiliate, according to the CRP’s opensecrets.org.
The senator’s son hasn’t lobbied him on the ENN project, said Kristen Orthman, a Reid spokeswoman.
“We have a longstanding office policy that strictly bars any member of the staff’s family or the Senator’s family from lobbying our office on behalf of their clients,” Orthman said in an e-mail. Reid did not recommend the law firm to ENN, she said. Bryan and Rory Reid didn’t return repeated calls.
While the project may create jobs, it doesn’t make sense in terms of market dynamics, said Lawrence Gasman, principal analyst at Glen Allen, Va.-based NanoMarkets, an alternative- energy research firm.
‘Reasons to be Skeptical’
“There are many reasons to be skeptical of this project,” Gasman said. “Running a power plant and running a manufacturing plant making solar panels are two very different skill sets.”
Cash-strapped states nationwide want to draw foreign investment to create jobs and boost tax revenue. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Feb. 24 that PepsiCo Inc. and Theo Muller Gmbh, a German dairy company, would invest $206 million in a yogurt factory that would create 186 jobs.
In Florida, a Malaysian developer announced plans to build a five-star resort on Biscayne Bay that state officials said would boost employment and raise millions in tax revenue.
In January, Xinyu, China-based LDK Solar Co. announced plans to build two solar plants with a capacity of 8 megawatts in California.
Like struggling U.S. solar manufacturers, Nanosolar Inc. and SoloPower Inc., both based in San Jose, and Loveland, Colo.- based Abound Solar Inc., ENN manufactures thin film solar panels. ENN’s panels aren’t made with the same material as its U.S. competitors’ and rely on a non-crystalline substance known as amorphous silicon.
Firing Workers
SoloPower announced in August that it received a $197 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. Abound Solar, with $400 million in approved federal loan guarantees, said in February it was firing 180 workers and halting solar panel production.
Solar price weakness may be good news for consumers and for utilities such as San Francisco-based PG&E Corp. (PCG), which is required to buy much of its power from renewable sources, said Anthony Earley Jr., PG&E’s chief executive officer. The trend isn’t as healthy for government-backed solar companies struggling to make ends meet in the aftermath of the collapse of Solyndra.
“Every time we go out for bids we are seeing the price come down,” Earley said in an interview. “A lot of it is that the Chinese and others are dumping cheap solar cells on the market. The risk is the industry just collapses.”
Suits of Armor
The man behind the proposed Nevada plant is Wang, 48, chairman of ENN Group, which includes ENN Energy Holdings Ltd. (2688), the fourth-largest Hong Kong-listed natural gas supplier by sales. He founded the company that became ENN Group in 1989 and it now operates in more than 100 cities across China, according to its website.
Wang rose from a background selling natural gas canisters for home cooking and renting cars to build the 100-acre ENN headquarters 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of Beijing, with manufacturing facilities and a company museum. Nearby, Wang built a luxury golf course with his personal villa and a five- star hotel, featuring a wine cellar guarded by suits of armor.
With his wife, Zhao Baoju, Wang is estimated to be worth $2.7 billion, ranking the couple among the top 100 richest people in China, according to the Hurun Report, a Shanghai-based publisher of luxury magazines, which tracks the nation’s wealthy using publicly available information.
Land Deal
The land deal ENN negotiated with Clark County commissioners requires the firm to obtain an agreement from a utility to buy power before it can break ground, Sisolak said.
The California Public Utilities Commission approved only a fraction of renewable power deals brought before it for review last year, said Timothy Alan Simon, a member of the commission.
“We have a situation where we’re oversubscribed,” Simon said in a telephone interview.
Speaking through an interpreter, Wang touted the proposal in August in Las Vegas at Reid’s fourth annual Clean Energy Summit. Vice President Joe Biden and California Governor Jerry Brown -- who asked Wang to consider bringing the project to his state -- were photographed alongside the ENN chairman, Reid and Sisolak.
‘Resort Destination’
“We plan to build an eco-community by using our ‘Ubiquitous Energy Network’ technology, with the aim of making it a good resort destination just like Las Vegas,” Wang said in a speech at the summit.
In a statement provided by a company spokesman, ENN Solar Energy Co. Chief Operating Officer De-Ling Zhou said: “After reviewing your questions, it became clear that at this early stage in the proposed project, we simply do not have enough details or are not in a position to adequately answer them.
“We can say ENN’s proposed project will bolster the long- term economic health of Clark County and the State of Nevada,” Zhou wrote.
Job creation persuaded Clark County commissioners to approve the subsidized land deal, which requires ENN to meet a series of milestones including investing $100 million by 2014 and $1 billion by 2018. Officials also offered to use ENN’s land payments to build infrastructure on the property.
“Next to the hospitality industry, construction has been our life blood,” said Sisolak. “It’s not like it got a little rough for construction over the last couple of years. It basically went away.”
For Clark County, where 70 percent of homeowners owe more on their homes than they are worth, furloughed construction workers rely on food banks at local union halls, and unemployment is 13.1 percent, the project could singlehandedly diversify a stagnant economy.
“I can’t tell you how many tours I’ve given people over the years trying to get them to see Laughlin as an attractive place,” said Brady, who has managed the town since 1995 on behalf of Clark County.
About 30 percent fewer people visited Laughlin in 2011 than in 2007, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. Gaming revenues at its riverside resorts -- battling competition from Indian casinos in Nevada and California -- were off by 25 percent, statistics show.
ENN isn’t the only company interested in the desolate desert where road runners race across potholed two-lane roads in front of Baby Boomers on Harleys. Here, the sun shines 320 days a year and mobile phones can’t decide whether to use Pacific (Laughlin) or Mountain (Arizona) time.
Others are also looking to buy land for solar projects in the area, wrote New York-based Integra Realty Resources in an appraisal commissioned by Clark County for the 9,000-acre ENN parcel and obtained by Bloomberg through the Nevada Public Records Act.
“From what we can surmise, this is just the beginning,” Integra wrote. The firm added: “We also found that this is a highly secretive business.”
Source - Bloomberg
Showing posts with label Chinese government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chinese government. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Tuesday, 21 April 2009
South Korea lights the way on carbon emissions with its £23bn green deal
The secretary for future vision is considering how many South Koreans it takes to change a million lightbulbs. No joke.
Kim Sang-hyo, the president's extravagantly titled right-hand man, is trying to create more than 940,000 green jobs and improve his country's energy efficiency at the same time. Switching every bulb in every public building in South Korea to light-emitting diodes by the end of this year is one, very small, element in the master plan of what has been described as the greenest new deal on the planet.
Since the start of the financial crisis last year, governments across the globe have been talking up the environmental content of their fiscal stimulus programmes and being judged by their efforts to save the planet. US president Barack Obama and the Chinese government have been praised for their ambitious plans to invest in renewable power, clean transport and energy-efficient buildings. Britain, by contrast, has been castigated for the relatively miserly sums it has so far committed to green projects. Alistair Darling's budget tomorrow will be closely scrutinised from the same perspective.
But no matter what the UK promises, it will pale in comparison with the green boasts of South Korea's 50tn won (£23bn) plan. According to an international ranking by the bank HSBC, 81% of the money is earmarked for green projects, easily the highest proportion in the world and vastly more than the 7% share in the UK.
So how will South Korea spend all that money? The first challenge for Kim is co-ordinating how this huge sum - equivalent to 2.6% of GDP - should be doled out. He must face both drooling construction industry conglomerates and suspicious environmental groups while creating jobs and lifting a nosediving economy. Many Koreans believe the apparently green spending will turn out to be heavily grey.
At his office in the presidential Blue House, Kim says he is tasked with a fundamental restructuring of the South Korean economy and energy structure, which is 97% dependent on expensive imported fuel. "The president realises that now is the time for change," he says.
Over the next four years, the government promises to build a million green homes, improve the energy efficiency of a million more, invest £1.2bn on research into low-carbon technologies and spend £4.8bn on high-speed railways and other forms of "clean" transport.
More than 2,500 miles of bicycle expressways will be built, including a 175-mile stretch alongside the demilitarised zone boundary with North Korea. By 2020, expanded subway, railway and electric car ownership is expected to reduce greenhouse gases from transport by 20%. The forestry sector will employ an extra 50,000 people to increase carbon sink capacity and build the country's first wood pellet fuel mill.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has praised the example set by his homeland. But environmental groups warn the plan is not nearly as green as it seems.
The biggest and most controversial item of expenditure is the "renewal" of four rivers, ostensibly to reduce the risk of drought. The project is likely to mean more dams and concrete embankments. Critics suspect it will be used as a cover to push through the president's widely opposed goal of building a canal through the centre of the country. There are fears too that developers will use the excuse of "ecohome" building to tear up strips of green belt outside Seoul.
Many also question the wisdom of building long-distance cycle paths they think will benefit the cement industry more than the environment.
"This is just old-style fiscal spending with a new label. At the end of this 'green new deal', Korea will definitely be a greyer country," said Oh Sung-kyu, general secretary of the Citizen's Movement for Environmental Justice. "The problem is that in Korea, jobs equals concrete."
With few specific details about how the money will be spent and no estimate of the impact on carbon emissions, environmental auditing of the plan is difficult. Diplomats and local journalists said the true amount of green spending was likely to be far below 81%. In the short term, some suggest, South Korea's carbon footprint could even go up as a result of the burst of construction. But Kim denies these accusations. "Our projects are all related to lowering emissions. They will definitely reduce our carbon emissions."
President Lee Myung-bak may have a long way to go before he can persuade sceptics that he has turned over a green new leaf. Lee is a former head of Hyundai Construction, one of the world's biggest cement pourers. As mayor of Seoul, his best-known "green" project was the development of Cheongye stream, which was uncovered and now runs on a concrete bed, beside concrete walkways and neon-illuminated concrete walls.
Concern for the environment has traditionally been a low priority in South Korea's development, which has long centred on energy-intensive heavy industry. Green groups say the world's 13th biggest economy pours almost twice as much cement as Japan and is three times worse for energy inefficiency.
However, the business-oriented president says the country must turn green to improve its corporate competitiveness. To sell his green growth plans to the nation's conglomerates - known as chaebol - he has stressed that moving early on low-carbon technology will give South Korea a head start over rivals around the world.
Hi-tech companies, such as Samsung, Hyundai and SK, have already begun investing in energy-saving technologies that use their expertise in semi-conductors and information technology.
The government hopes to accelerate the move to green-tech powerhouses by offering incentives and support for research and development. Hyundai and Kia will get financial support to develop electric and hybrid vehicles. South Korea also aims to be the first country in the world to have a "smart national grid" that uses information technology to maximise the efficiency of electricity transmission.
Given the huge sums spent in other areas, the renewable energy spending share of South Korea's green new deal is a disappointingly low £80m, mostly on solar-powered homes, photovoltaic heating and geothermal power sources for apartment blocks. Part of the reason is that the government had previously announced plans to invest 37tn won from 2009 to 2022 on new power plants, including 12 nuclear plants, to improve fuel efficiency and lower emissions.
Government advisers say South Korea's relatively small and crowded land area limits the potential for large-scale wind and solar projects and the rivers have far less hydro-power potential than those in China and the US. But even before the green new deal, engineers had begun work on the world's biggest tidal power plant. When it is finished later this year, the 254MW capacity plant at Siwha will supply the energy equivalent of 862,000 barrels of oil a year. A three times bigger tidal power plant is planned at Ganghwa.
Over the next 20 years, the government says it will invest 110tn won in renewables so that by 2030, they make up 11%of the overall energy mix. While this is far less ambitious than China, Europe or the US, it is a big improvement on the 2.4% share in 2007. Chung Rae-kwon, South Korea's climate change ambassador, said that by June, the government will announce its first target for reducing greenhouse gases: "The green new deal is just the start."
John Ashton, special representative for climate change for the UK Foreign Office, said South Korea was moving fast. "There seems to be growing consensus in Korea that being an early mover in the low carbon transition is good for the Korean economy, and good for Korean manufacturers."
At the Blue House, Kim says South Korea is on the point of embracing green technology with the same fervour that it adopted broadband in the late 1990s.
"By 2020, we'd like to be at least in the top five nations for green technology," says the presidential secretary for future vision. "As a nation, we want to be charming, to get respect from global society, to be seen as more than an economic animal.
"It has been only seven months since the president made the speech calling for low-carbon, green growth, but so much is changing. Everyone is now talking about green things. It may be a strength or a weakness of Korean people, but once we reach a consensus we move very quickly," he said.
Key projects:
Housing
$6bn for the construction of 1m green homes, energy efficiency upgrades for a million more, energy conservation improvements in villages and schools, and the installation of LED lighting in public facilities.
Cars
$1.8bn to support the development of fuel-efficient vehicles, such as electric and hybrid cars, by automakers
Hyundai and Kia.
Trains and bikes
$7bn to upgrade the transport infrastructure through the expansion of electrified tracks, new high-speed rail links and the construction of more than 2,500 miles of bicycle paths.
Water
$11.1bn on river "restoration" and water resource management that will controversially include building dams
and concreting some embankments.
Forestry
$1.7bn on forestry management,
including tree planting to improve
carbon sink capacity, and new facilities to use wood as biomass energy.
Recycling
$670m on resource recycling, including rubbish incineration plants that burn methane emissions to generate electricity.
Source - The Guardian
Kim Sang-hyo, the president's extravagantly titled right-hand man, is trying to create more than 940,000 green jobs and improve his country's energy efficiency at the same time. Switching every bulb in every public building in South Korea to light-emitting diodes by the end of this year is one, very small, element in the master plan of what has been described as the greenest new deal on the planet.
Since the start of the financial crisis last year, governments across the globe have been talking up the environmental content of their fiscal stimulus programmes and being judged by their efforts to save the planet. US president Barack Obama and the Chinese government have been praised for their ambitious plans to invest in renewable power, clean transport and energy-efficient buildings. Britain, by contrast, has been castigated for the relatively miserly sums it has so far committed to green projects. Alistair Darling's budget tomorrow will be closely scrutinised from the same perspective.
But no matter what the UK promises, it will pale in comparison with the green boasts of South Korea's 50tn won (£23bn) plan. According to an international ranking by the bank HSBC, 81% of the money is earmarked for green projects, easily the highest proportion in the world and vastly more than the 7% share in the UK.
So how will South Korea spend all that money? The first challenge for Kim is co-ordinating how this huge sum - equivalent to 2.6% of GDP - should be doled out. He must face both drooling construction industry conglomerates and suspicious environmental groups while creating jobs and lifting a nosediving economy. Many Koreans believe the apparently green spending will turn out to be heavily grey.
At his office in the presidential Blue House, Kim says he is tasked with a fundamental restructuring of the South Korean economy and energy structure, which is 97% dependent on expensive imported fuel. "The president realises that now is the time for change," he says.
Over the next four years, the government promises to build a million green homes, improve the energy efficiency of a million more, invest £1.2bn on research into low-carbon technologies and spend £4.8bn on high-speed railways and other forms of "clean" transport.
More than 2,500 miles of bicycle expressways will be built, including a 175-mile stretch alongside the demilitarised zone boundary with North Korea. By 2020, expanded subway, railway and electric car ownership is expected to reduce greenhouse gases from transport by 20%. The forestry sector will employ an extra 50,000 people to increase carbon sink capacity and build the country's first wood pellet fuel mill.
The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has praised the example set by his homeland. But environmental groups warn the plan is not nearly as green as it seems.
The biggest and most controversial item of expenditure is the "renewal" of four rivers, ostensibly to reduce the risk of drought. The project is likely to mean more dams and concrete embankments. Critics suspect it will be used as a cover to push through the president's widely opposed goal of building a canal through the centre of the country. There are fears too that developers will use the excuse of "ecohome" building to tear up strips of green belt outside Seoul.
Many also question the wisdom of building long-distance cycle paths they think will benefit the cement industry more than the environment.
"This is just old-style fiscal spending with a new label. At the end of this 'green new deal', Korea will definitely be a greyer country," said Oh Sung-kyu, general secretary of the Citizen's Movement for Environmental Justice. "The problem is that in Korea, jobs equals concrete."
With few specific details about how the money will be spent and no estimate of the impact on carbon emissions, environmental auditing of the plan is difficult. Diplomats and local journalists said the true amount of green spending was likely to be far below 81%. In the short term, some suggest, South Korea's carbon footprint could even go up as a result of the burst of construction. But Kim denies these accusations. "Our projects are all related to lowering emissions. They will definitely reduce our carbon emissions."
President Lee Myung-bak may have a long way to go before he can persuade sceptics that he has turned over a green new leaf. Lee is a former head of Hyundai Construction, one of the world's biggest cement pourers. As mayor of Seoul, his best-known "green" project was the development of Cheongye stream, which was uncovered and now runs on a concrete bed, beside concrete walkways and neon-illuminated concrete walls.
Concern for the environment has traditionally been a low priority in South Korea's development, which has long centred on energy-intensive heavy industry. Green groups say the world's 13th biggest economy pours almost twice as much cement as Japan and is three times worse for energy inefficiency.
However, the business-oriented president says the country must turn green to improve its corporate competitiveness. To sell his green growth plans to the nation's conglomerates - known as chaebol - he has stressed that moving early on low-carbon technology will give South Korea a head start over rivals around the world.
Hi-tech companies, such as Samsung, Hyundai and SK, have already begun investing in energy-saving technologies that use their expertise in semi-conductors and information technology.
The government hopes to accelerate the move to green-tech powerhouses by offering incentives and support for research and development. Hyundai and Kia will get financial support to develop electric and hybrid vehicles. South Korea also aims to be the first country in the world to have a "smart national grid" that uses information technology to maximise the efficiency of electricity transmission.
Given the huge sums spent in other areas, the renewable energy spending share of South Korea's green new deal is a disappointingly low £80m, mostly on solar-powered homes, photovoltaic heating and geothermal power sources for apartment blocks. Part of the reason is that the government had previously announced plans to invest 37tn won from 2009 to 2022 on new power plants, including 12 nuclear plants, to improve fuel efficiency and lower emissions.
Government advisers say South Korea's relatively small and crowded land area limits the potential for large-scale wind and solar projects and the rivers have far less hydro-power potential than those in China and the US. But even before the green new deal, engineers had begun work on the world's biggest tidal power plant. When it is finished later this year, the 254MW capacity plant at Siwha will supply the energy equivalent of 862,000 barrels of oil a year. A three times bigger tidal power plant is planned at Ganghwa.
Over the next 20 years, the government says it will invest 110tn won in renewables so that by 2030, they make up 11%of the overall energy mix. While this is far less ambitious than China, Europe or the US, it is a big improvement on the 2.4% share in 2007. Chung Rae-kwon, South Korea's climate change ambassador, said that by June, the government will announce its first target for reducing greenhouse gases: "The green new deal is just the start."
John Ashton, special representative for climate change for the UK Foreign Office, said South Korea was moving fast. "There seems to be growing consensus in Korea that being an early mover in the low carbon transition is good for the Korean economy, and good for Korean manufacturers."
At the Blue House, Kim says South Korea is on the point of embracing green technology with the same fervour that it adopted broadband in the late 1990s.
"By 2020, we'd like to be at least in the top five nations for green technology," says the presidential secretary for future vision. "As a nation, we want to be charming, to get respect from global society, to be seen as more than an economic animal.
"It has been only seven months since the president made the speech calling for low-carbon, green growth, but so much is changing. Everyone is now talking about green things. It may be a strength or a weakness of Korean people, but once we reach a consensus we move very quickly," he said.
Key projects:
Housing
$6bn for the construction of 1m green homes, energy efficiency upgrades for a million more, energy conservation improvements in villages and schools, and the installation of LED lighting in public facilities.
Cars
$1.8bn to support the development of fuel-efficient vehicles, such as electric and hybrid cars, by automakers
Hyundai and Kia.
Trains and bikes
$7bn to upgrade the transport infrastructure through the expansion of electrified tracks, new high-speed rail links and the construction of more than 2,500 miles of bicycle paths.
Water
$11.1bn on river "restoration" and water resource management that will controversially include building dams
and concreting some embankments.
Forestry
$1.7bn on forestry management,
including tree planting to improve
carbon sink capacity, and new facilities to use wood as biomass energy.
Recycling
$670m on resource recycling, including rubbish incineration plants that burn methane emissions to generate electricity.
Source - The Guardian
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