President Moon Jae-in‘s aggressive push for renewable energy has incentivized increasingly more farmers to repurpose their land as solar farms, drawing concerns over South Korea’s food security. According to Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy data obtained by Rep. Yoon Young-seok of the main opposition People Power Party, farmland amounting to the size of Gangnam -- the third largest district in Seoul – has been transformed into solar farms over the past five years. I

South Korea’s energy policy faces mounting uncertainties as two ministries appear to hold different views over liquefied natural gas, or LNG. According to industry sources Friday, the Environment Ministry is mulling to exclude LNG from its green classification system set for launch later this year. The classification system aims to evaluate the environmental sustainability of industries and judge which one is green and promote public and private investments. Industries excluded from

Solus Advanced Materials, formerly known as Doosan Solus, said Friday it had split off its bio division as a wholly owned subsidiary Solus Biotech to target the global mRNA vaccine market. The new bio subsidiary will be led by Seo Kwang-byeok, the current CEO of Solus Advanced Materials, and target an annual revenue of 120 billion won ($100 million) by 2025. Solus Biotech supplies organic compounds to global manufacturers of cosmetic, food and pharmaceutical products. The firm commands 95

South Korea commands almost half of the world’s secondary battery market, but the country‘s reliance on imported materials is growing to an alarming level, data showed Friday. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy data obtained by Rep. Kim Kyung-man, the nation’s share of the global secondary battery market spiked from 34.7 percent in 2018 to 44.1 percent in 2020. The country is home to three of the world‘s major battery producers, LG Energy Solution

SK Innovation said Friday it has officially carved out its battery division into a wholly owned subsidiary, SK On. According to SK Innovation, the firm’s board of directors approved the split-off and appointed Jee Dong-seob as the chief of SK On. Some 1,400 staff and executives who belonged to SK Innovation’s battery business will be relocated to SK On to continue electric vehicle battery, battery-as-a-service and energy storage system businesses. Jee, a former executive of SK

SK Inc. said Friday it has injected an additional $55 million into a San Francisco-based alternative protein firm Perfect Day to wade further into the global alternative food market. According to the holding firm of South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate SK Group, the investment was made together with STIC Investments, a leading private equity fund here. This is SK Inc.’s second investment in Perfect Day, after a 54 billion-won ($45.4 million) investment last year. The invest

A Chinese game featuring a female character dressed in traditional Korean costume hanbok has sparked controversy over plagiarism and intellectual property theft in South Korea.  According to industry sources Thursday, Blooming Moonlight, a game serviced in Korea by Chinese game developer Zishi Technology, showcases a character wearing a hanbok outfit with the exact same design as that of Baekoaksoo, a renowned Seoul-based hanbok company, which previously designed the outfits featured in th

Doosan Group said Thursday it has established “Doosan H2 Innovation” to consolidate the group’s hydrogen research and development efforts currently dispersed across different affiliates. According to South Korea’s No. 15 conglomerate, the newly established company will take a central role of the group’s development of solid oxide fuel cells, or SOFCs. SOFCs are third-generation fuel cells that can offer longer life spans and greater efficiency than conventional m

SK Geo Centric has become the first company in South Korea to utilize oil extracted from plastic waste as a feedstock to manufacture petrochemical products, the company said Thursday. Formerly known as SK Global Chemical, the petrochemical subsidiary of SK Innovation began pumping waste plastic oil mixed together with crude oil into the production line of its plant in Ulsan to manufacture various products including gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel and naphtha. “Starting October, SK Geo C

DL Chemical, the world’s largest producer of polybutene, said Tuesday it will acquire Texas-based specialty chemical manufacturer Kraton for $1.6 billion to bolster its presence in the US and European markets. According to the subsidiary of South Korea’s DL Holdings, it will purchase the full stake of Kraton at $45.60 per share. DL will spend $2.5 billion in total, as it will also take over the US firm’s net debt of $900 million. The acquisition will allow DL Chemical to ma

Daesung Group Chairman Younghoon David Kim on Tuesday presented his vision for a waste-free world by harnessing the power of living microorganisms. Speaking to The Korea Herald at the 2021 Daesung Haegang Microbes Forum in Seoul, he said his energy conglomerate is investing to transform methane emitted from garbage buried inside landfills into useful resources such as biodegradable plastic. “Until now, we have utilized resources made of dead microorganisms, such as oil. It’s ti

SK Innovation and Ford will inject $11.4 billion and create nearly 11,000 new jobs at three new battery factories in Tennessee and Kentucky to produce electric vehicles and batteries. BlueOvalSK, a joint venture between the South Korean battery firm and the US automaker, will establish a twin lithium-ion battery plants in central Kentucky to power a new lineup of Ford and Lincoln EVs. Another one will be set up in west Tennessee, where Ford workers will build next-generation electric F-series

The whole world is talking about the electric future of mobility, with auto brands churning out a dizzying array of electrified passenger cars. But for commercial vehicles such as cargo trucks, airplanes and freight ships -- which have to carry as many payloads as possible -- batteries are simply too heavy and expensive. Like it or not, they need liquid fuels for the time being. In that case, why not just make a new, eco-friendly fuel out of renewable materials? During an interview with Th

Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology said Monday it has developed the world’s first virtual reality gloves with heat, vibration and motion controls all integrated together. According to UNIST, the VR gloves track angles of two joints on each of the fingers in real-time and reflect the changes on the display. Also, the gloves can feel subtle vibrations and temperatures. “If a user grabs an item inside hot water, a sudden change of temperature will be delivered realis

Doosan Fuel Cell on Monday shipped four hydrogen fuel cells worth $13.2 million to China in what was marked as South Korea’s first export of the product. According to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Trade Monday, the fuel cells with a combined capacity of 1.8 megawatts will be installed at seven apartment buildings of 400 households and one commercial building in Foshan, Guangdong province. The fuel cells will generate heat and electricity. The fuel cells were manufactured almost e

This is the last installment in a series of interviews with executives of Korean companies with space ambitions. -- Ed. Every single one of South Korea’s 51 million inhabitants relies in some way on the Global Positioning System, the navigation system provided by a constellation of 31 satellites owned by the US. Since 1983, the US has offered its GPS service for free. Now, satellite navigation has seeped into every field of industry, from car navigation to logistics, and many aspects

Samsung Electronics and Harvard on Sunday introduced a new approach to mimicking the mechanism of a human brain on a memory chip. In a paper published in Nature Electronics, Samsung engineers and Harvard researchers explained how to create memory devices that can better mimic the unique computing traits of a human brain -- low power, facile learning, adaptation to environment and autonomy and cognition. The paper suggests copying the brain’s neuronal connection map using nano-electrod

A family of four in South Korea will see electricity bills rise as much as 1,050 won ($0.89) per month starting October as the Korea Electric Power Corp. decided to raise utility prices for the first time in eight years to mitigate skyrocketing fuel costs. According to the state-run utility firm Thursday, the electricity bill will go up 3 won per kilowatt-hour, the first increase since November 2013. For an average four-member household that consumes 350 kW of electricity per month, this would

This is the second installment in a series of interviews with executives of Korean companies with space ambitions. -- Ed.  About a month from now, South Korea will launch its first homegrown rocket “Nuri.” 　 A successful launch of the domestically made space launch vehicle is expected to herald a new space era for the country, where government-led programs transition to market-oriented ventures, with a key hindrance -- the decades-old Korea-US missile guidelines that put curb

Hyundai Motor Group said Wednesday it has joined hands with two local partners in Texas to test whether spent-up electric vehicle batteries could be reused as energy storage systems. ESS is a giant battery the size of a container that stores leftover electricity by renewables such as solar and wind power. By September next year, Hyundai Motor, CPS Energy and OCI Solar Power will establish an ESS facility that can store a half-megawatt power, which is enough to power some 100 homes for a day.