Economic Hopes and a Return to Normality Seen in Biden Victory
President Moon Jae-in quickly congratulated President-elect Joe Biden last week following his projected victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 General Election. In his November
Hyundai Motors took a small but important step recently that moves towards Korea’s goal of clean energy by opening the nation’s first hydrogen refueling station for commercial vehicles in the heart of Seoul. It was part of the government’s energy priority to sharply increase both vehicles and electricity generation powered by hydrogen, a clean alternative to oil-based energy use.
It’s also part of a larger plan to take the technology lead in designing and building fuel-cell cars and large-scale stationary fuel cells for power generation.
“Hyundai Motor will make more efforts to play the leading role in the hydrogen-based commercial vehicle market by developing and producing hydrogen buses and trucks, as well as hydrogen passenger cars,” Hyundai said in a statement. “We will continue to make efforts to supply hydrogen-electric vehicles and expand infrastructure so that South Korea can develop into a true hydrogen society.”
That’s an ambitious plan that has strong support from the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, which has committed to broad subsidies and incentives for companies to move away from carbon fuels and towards cleaner hydrogen. Some of the programs that the Ministry is putting in place include:
“The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked the world’s awareness over health and safety. Demand for environment-friendly hydrogen fuel cell cars will grow down the road,” Energy Minister Sung Yoon-mo told Hyundai executives and other members of the Korea Automotive Technology Institute at a recent meeting.
As part of Korean efforts to move towards hydrogen power, the Government in May announced an ambitious plan to construct the world’s largest liquid hydrogen plants, with a goal of having the $240-billion facility open by the end of 2022.
While Hyundai currently exports hydrogen-powered trucks to Switzerland, it will launch a domestic version of the vehicle into Korea by the end of next year. It is expanding its production capacity for hydrogen-powered vehicles from 1,000 at end of 2019 to more than 11,000 by the end of 2020.
“We aim to produce 40,000 hydrogen-powered passenger and commercial vehicles in 2022, and increase the capacity to 130,000 units by 2025 and to 500,000 units in 2030,” a Hyundai spokesman said at the recent meeting.
President Moon Jae-in quickly congratulated President-elect Joe Biden last week following his projected victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 General Election. In his November
When Americans go to the polls in this week to decide whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden will lead the nation as president for the
In a speech last week to the New York-based Korean Society, Korea President Moon Jae-In urged a formal end to the Korean war and said
Korea’s steel manufacturers received a substantial boost after the Court of International Trade ruled in Korea’s favor in a tariff dispute with the United States.