Despite the government’s pledge to curb industrial and everyday sources of the fine dust that has risen as a major public health threat, the amount of South Korea’s coal consumption is expected to rise by 2.7 percent this year, a research institute said Thursday.

The Korea Energy Economics Institute said that the total energy demand for South Korea this year is estimated at 289.4 tons of oil equivalent this year, up by 1.5 percent from last year. This is due to introduction of new bituminous or soft coal-based and nuclear energy power plants as well as low oil prices, it said.

While industrial demands for coal such as from steel manufacturers and cement plants will remain stagnant, the demands for power generation will rise.

New bituminous coal power plants at a combined size of 6.7 gigawatts are to start being mobilized by the end of this year.

In comparison, the demands for natural gas is expected to reduce by 6.4 percent this year, following last year’s decline by 8.7 percent. The institute said it was due to large-scale expansion of base-load power stations that use nuclear power or coal that are relatively cheaper to generate power from.

The institute also said the report is based on government energy policies that were in place before the measures to cut back on fine dust were released.

Such forecast runs counter to the government’s measures last month to decommission some of the coal-based power plants into environment-friendly ones such as by shutting down outdated coal power plants, in order to reduce fine dust that has surged as a serious cause of air pollution.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy officials reportedly explained that mobilization of newly-built power plants is inevitable to meet the demand and that no details have yet been settled on suspending time-worn coal power plants.

(khnews@heraldcorp.com)