South Korea is banking on the global renewable energy economy reaching $400 billion per year by 2015, and it is willing to invest 40 trillion KRW – roughly $36 billion USD – in solar, wind and other clean energy technologies to set the nation up for the future.
Speaking yesterday at a Seoul meeting on regional green growth under the theme, “The Power of Opening the Future: Sun, Wind and Water,” South Korean President Lee Myung-bak said a booming renewable energy economy would become his administration’s legacy to the people.
The government agency responsible for the policy, The Ministry of Knowledge Economy, claims the massive investment will create 110,000 new jobs and provide South Korea with an eventual 15 percent share of the renewable energy market.
China is currently the leader in the production and export of solar energy system components, followed by Taiwan and Malaysia. South Korea, the fourth-largest economy in the Asian region, hopes to make it onto the top five exporters of clean energy parts and machinery.
In his speech President Lee said that in the new century, in an era of climate change and peak oil, sustainable industries such as the construction and export of solar energy generation systems, offshore wind farms and water management devices would be the new "ship-building" industries of the 21st century.
“We all should have a deep perception that in the era of climate change, the value and importance of sun, wind and water as natural capital are growing bigger and bigger,” he said.
