Major Contents and Issues of Korea's Energy Basic Plan
Ki-Ju Han*, Ph.D.

1. Introduction
The South Korean government recently announced its third basic energy plan, which is thebasis of the nation's energy policy. The core of the plan, which will be finalized within thisyear, is to expand the portion of renewable energy generation to 30 to 35 percent by 2040, anddrastically reduce coal generation to cope with fine dust and greenhouse gas problems. The
target for the nuclear generation target has yet to be announced, but a reduction target is
expected to reflect the current policy stance on reducing nuclear power. As Korea is severely
suffering from fine dust and social awareness of the need to reduce greenhouse gases is also
rapidly growing, there is basically enough social consensus on the direction of such a basic
energy plan. However, the validity of these policy goals has been highly controversial insociety due to economic and technical factors.
At the center of the controversy is whether the current administration's energy plan goals will
put too much strain on the national economy. While the government argues that the rapid
development of the renewable energy technologies makes it economically feasible to expand
the renewable energy sources, and that the risk of nuclear power plants is so great that a rapid
reduction in the proportion of nuclear power plants is inevitable, there exist strong social
opinion which refutes this argument. Adding to the controversy are the recent moves by majorcountries to ease their existing aggressive nuclear reduction policies. This paper tries to review
the current Korean government's direction on energy policy and the main contents on the Third
Basic Energy Plan and other related energy plans, and the issues and the causes of thearguments.

2. Methods of Analysis
To help understand Korea's energy policy, we first explain the basic direction, goals andbackground of Korea's energy policy in the past. And then the basic direction of the current
South Korean government's energy policy and the main contents of the recently finalizedcountry's third energy basic plan are explained, and the background for which the goals of thebasic plan are set is analyzed.
The main content and rationale of the discussion of pros and cons over the feasibility of theseplans are then reviewed from a social, political and economic perspective.

* Visiting Research Fellow, Climate Change Research Center, Sejong University#1116, Gwanggaeto Bldg., 209 Neungdongro, Gwangjingu, Seoul, Korea,
Tel.: +82-10-4905-7413, Fax: +82-2-3408-4354, E-mail: hankju@hanmail.net

3. Results of Analysis
South Korea's third basic energy plan, finalized in June 2019, has set goals for each of fivesectors - consumption, production, systems, industry and infrastructure - under the vision of"Sustainable Growth through Energy Transfer and Improving the Quality of Life for thePeople."
But the most problematic of these is the production sector, which aims to expand the portionof renewable energy from 7.6 percent in 2017 to 30 to 35 percent by 2040, through a policy ofgradual and bold reduction of nuclear and coal power plants and a strong supply of renewableenergy. Specific targets for reducing the proportion of nuclear power have not been announced.
The government judges that in order to reduce the amount of fine dust, which is a very serious
social problem internally, and to cope with global climate change requires a reduction in coal
power generation. It also stresses that the reduction of nuclear power plants is also inevitablein line with public demand for safe energy after the Fukushima nuclear accident and the recent
earthquake in Gyeongju and Pohang. Also, it is suggested that major advanced countries areactively pursuing policies to expand the number of decolon bombs, nuclear power generation.
However, counterargument to this policy direction has also been strongly raised. First of all,regarding the policy direction of ex-nuclear power generation there exists a wide gap between
the government and the opponents of the government policy on the stability of nuclear power
plants and their economic impact. In addition, there has been much skepticism about the policyof expanding renewable energy due to the instability and low economy of renewables
themselves.

4. Conclusion
This great debate over government policy seems to be largely due to the following two factors.
The first is the issue of determining social values for the value of the environment, and thesecond is that the objective basis for the impact of policy is uncertain. Thus, unless a social
consensus is reached, the controversy over the current administration's energy policy will not
be easy to ease.