What would Korea’s 2050 carbon neutrality require?

Abstract

This integrated assessment modeling research analyzes what Korea's national energy system would need to be carbon neutral in 2050, as well as the power sector's role in ensuring the availability of important mitigation technologies. Our scenario-based analyses show that Korea's existing policy falls short of what the country's carbon-neutrality goals demand. Across all of the technology scenarios included in this analysis, a large-scale deployment of renewables and carbon capture and storage (CCS) early on, as well as negative emission technologies (NETs) by the mid-century, is required. Importantly, rapid decarbonization of the power sector in conjunction with rapid electrification of end-uses appears to be a viable national decarbonization strategy. Furthermore, we utilize the policy costs, natural resource constraints, and the rate of expansion of zero-carbon technologies to contextualize our net-zero scenario results. We discovered that availability of nuclear power reduces the rate at which renewables and CCS must expand, alleviating any stress on terrestrial and geological systems. The restricted availability of CCS without nuclear power, on the other hand, necessitates a very high renewables penetration and substantial policy compliance costs, reducing the feasibility of achieving the carbon neutrality target.