A rusty railroad abandoned in Seoul brings back old memories and warm nostalgia.  Hang-dong Railroad, located in Guro-gu, Seoul, is a 4.5-kilometer track drenched with a vintage atmosphere, with traces of train stations and destination signs left here and there.  Lined with deep greenery and green barley, the 62-year-old railway is now one of the most beloved places for Seoulites to go and reflect. Beside Hang-dong Railroad, there is the Pureun Arboretum, Seoul’s first arboret

LG Energy Solution said Thursday it is mulling a new electric vehicle battery plant worth $2 billion in the Canadian province of Ontario. According to South Korea’s leading battery firm, it is currently in talks with Ontario officials for the new battery factory. The envisioned Ontario plant is part of LG Energy Solution’s plan to invest 5.6 trillion won ($4.76 billion) in North America by 2024 and secure an additional annual production capacity of 55 gigawatt-hours in the regi

EcoProBM, an electric vehicle battery material supplier for Samsung SDI and SK On, said Thursday it will build a cathode plant in Hungary worth 970 billion won ($825 million). The Hungarian plant, which is to be EcoProBM’s first overseas investment, will churn out 108,000 tons of cathode material per year once it goes fully operational in the second half of 2025. The production output would be enough to produce batteries for 1.35 million electric vehicles, the company said. Cathodes

While Samsung makes a multibillion dollar bet on a new chip fab in the US, SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won is seeking to chart a different path in the semiconductor business, emphasizing “sustainability” as a prime factor to consider before making major investment decisions. While attending 2021 Trans-Pacific Dialogue held near Washington, DC, on Tuesday, the 61-year-old leader underscored that the key of the chip business is sustainability, not size, when asked of his plan on makin

LG Energy Solution said Tuesday it has entered an official stage to go public in January, amid market expectation that the company will join the top five on the list with a valuation of a whopping 70.2 trillion won ($59.5 billion). According to South Korea’s leading battery firm, it submitted a registration statement to the Financial Services Commission to be listed on the nation’s main bourse Kospi. The company seeks to raise up to 12.75 trillion won by offering 42.5 million sh

Electric vehicle chargers can’t fuel hydrogen vehicles and hydrogen chargers can’t juice up electric vehicles. But what if there’s a solution to charge both at the same time? Che Hoo-seok, chief operating officer at Doosan Fuel Cell, the hydrogen business unit of South Korean conglomerate Doosan Group, says the infrastructure conundrum can be addressed with a breakthrough “triple” energy generation technology. “With natural gas, Doosan Fuel Cell’s

The next batch of South Korea’s K2 Black Panther main battle tanks are expected to run on an locally-made transmission system instead of a German one, sources said Monday. “We have solved technical issues of our transmission system and it will go inside the fourth batch of K2 tanks,” a high-ranking official at SNT Dynamics told The Korea Herald. “A government quality test is scheduled in the first half of next year” Inside K2 tanks, there is a key component ca

반쪽짜리라는 오명을 쓴 K2 전차의 국산화가 눈앞으로 다가왔다. 번번이 발목을 잡은 SNT중공업의 변속기 문제가 드디어 해결된 것으로 확인됐다. 6일 방산업계에 따르면 SNT중공업은 최근 자사의 변속기 결함을 해결했으며 이에 따라 K2 전차의 4차 양산 물량부터 독일산 변속기가 아닌 국산 변속기 탑재가 가능해졌다. SNT중공업 고위 관계자는 코리아헤럴드와 만나 변속기 결함과 관련하여 “기술적 문제를 해결했고 내년 상반기 군 내구도 조사만 남았다”라며 “4차 양산 물량에 들어갈 것”이라고 말했다. 군은 현재 K2 전차 4차 양산을 고려중이다. 흑표라는 별칭을 가진 K2 전차는 1차, 2차, 3차 양산까지 확정됐지만 핵심 부품인 파워팩 국산화에 실패한 상태다. 파워팩의 핵심 부품인 변속기의 개발을 맡은 SNT중공업이 개발에 실패하면서 독일산 변속기가 대신 탑재됐다. 파워팩은 엔진과 변속기, 냉각장치를 통칭하는 용어로 육중한 전차를

When banks gave out loans, the only question they asked was, “Can you pay it back?” This was before the pandemic. But now, people hit hard by the COVID-19 are flocking to banks, desperate to get their hands on cash. Suddenly, lending money has become an emotional task. Banks have also come under increased scrutiny against the backdrop of a stronger push for environmental, social and governance values. If loans are used for controversial purposes, such as building coal power plant

A major US ride-sharing company will operate electric water taxis powered by Samsung SDI batteries near the Golden Gate Bridge next year. According to industry sources on Monday, the San Francisco-based startup will operate three electric water taxis -- each loaded with 220 kilowatt-hours of Samsung SDI batteries -- in the Golden Gate Strait starting in the second quarter of next year. The price of the electric water taxi is around $280,000 and it can carry one driver and six passengers. Th

ULSAN -- A city the size of Hong Kong churns out 5,400 cars every day, builds 12 percent of the world’s ships and runs Asia’s third-largest petrochemicals complex. It’s no surprise that Ulsan has the highest carbon emissions per person in South Korea. The port city, sitting on the southeast coast of the Korean Peninsula, aims to turn its weakness into a strength by collecting massive waste hydrogen generated at petrochemical facilities and using it as a fuel to power the c

ULSAN -- Through a 1.8-kilometer underground pipeline, hydrogen compressed by pressure 20 times greater than normal atmosphere flows to a remote hydrogen filling station in Ulsan, a port city located on the southeast coast of the Korean Peninsula. Completed in December last year, the facility is the pride of Ulsan, as it stands as South Korea’s first hydrogen fueling station directly connected to an underground pipeline, bringing waste hydrogen from nearby petrochemical facilities and p

세계 최대 승차공유 기업 U사가 삼성SDI 배터리를 탑재한 전기 수상 택시를 내년부터 샌프란시스코 금문교 부근에서 운영한다. 전기차를 넘어 수상택시까지 삼성SDI의 ‘수륙양용’ 배터리 시장 확대가 기대된다.  6일 조선업계에 따르면 U사는 삼성SDI 배터리 220kWh를 탑재한 수상택시 총 3대를 내년 2분기부터 골든게이트 해협에서 시범 운용할 계획이다. 해당 전기 수상택시는 U사의 플랫폼에서 호출 가능할 예정이다. 대당 가격은 3억 3천만원선이고 7인승이다.  한 업계 고위 관계자는 코리아헤럴드와 만나 “현재 총 5대의 수상택시가 국내에서 제작 중”이며 “4월경 3대가 미국으로 인도되고, 나머지 2대는 국내에서 운영될 예정”이라고 말했다. 해당 수상택시 제작사는 국내 친환경 소형선박 스타트업 빈센으로 확인됐다. 빈센과 U사는 정식계약의 전단계인 LOI (의향서)를 곧 체결할 예정이며 2

The ongoing urea solution shortage in South Korea is just a trailer. The real movie hasn’t even started yet. China can always send another wave of supply chain crises to Korea, and next time, the electric vehicle battery industry could be the target. According to Hana Financial Investment Thursday, electric vehicle batteries manufactured in South Korea by LG Energy Solution, Samsung SDI and SK On are heavily dependent on Chinese metals. “The three companies source 71 percent

Posco Chemical and General Motors will form a joint venture and build a factory in North America to locally produce key electric vehicle materials, the two companies announced Thursday. Once completed in 2024, the new facility will produce and supply cathodes to Ultium Cells, a joint venture between GM and LG Energy Solution, which is building two EV factories in Ohio and Tennessee. Though size and location remain unclear, this is Posco Chemical’s first expansion to the US. Cathodes a

For every dollar Samsung SDI makes by selling electric vehicle batteries, it only pockets 1 cent in profit. In contrast, Samsung Electronics earned 30.4 cents for every dollar in chips it sold from July to September this year. It’s no wonder Samsung doesn’t have its own EV battery factory in the US, but is instead investing a whopping $17 billion to build its second chip plant there. As the numbers show, the EV battery business, despite the market hype, is not as attractive in te

A merger between SK Inc. and SK Materials has been completed to pave the way for a 5 trillion won ($4.2 billion) investment in key businesses including battery, chip and display materials, officials said Tuesday. “By 2025, SK Inc. will invest a total of 5.1 trillion won into four key sectors -- battery materials, power and compound semiconductors, semiconductor materials and displays,” a company official said. The core business SK Inc. will absorb from SK Materials is anodes, on

With just one-fifth of its barren land, Saudi Arabia can generate sufficient renewable energy to produce 530 million tons of green hydrogen. That is equivalent to the entire world’s green hydrogen demand in 2050. Ironically, the world’s biggest exporter of fossil fuels is gifted with the cheapest solar and wind power on Earth, as the sun shines reliably every day and the wind blows constantly every night in the desert. Thanks to its almost unlimited sunshine and wind, Saudi Ara

Speculation is growing over the possibility of SK Chairman Chey Tae-won’s younger brother Chey Jae-won returning to management to take the helm of the group’s refining and petrochemicals unit SK Innovation, according to industry sources on Monday. The junior Chey, who served a three-and-half year jail term for embezzlement in 2014, faced employment restrictions for five years. Chey Jae-won, who holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Brown and a master’s degree in

South Korea on Friday unveiled a pangovernmental hydrogen blueprint that laid out detailed plans to realize the nation’s hydrogen economy, from authorizing self-service hydrogen fueling stations to replacing coal with ammonia at power plants. The blueprint aims to address the key weaknesses of Korea’s hydrogen ambition -- heavy reliance on foreign-made hydrogen, concerns over safety, lack of demand and price competitiveness in the hydrogen mobility sector and infrastructure, the g