Old coal-fired plants to be shuttered
President Moon Jae-in ordered the shutdown of old coal-fired power plants, Monday, as a means to tackle high levels of fine dust blanketing the nation.
“We plan on closing down all coal-fired power plants which are 30 years or more old as soon as possible within my term, and switch them to environmentally-friendly natural gas power stations,” Moon said at Eunjung Elementary School in western Seoul, in a class on fine dust. The visit was organized for the president to hear students and parents talk about the issue.
“In the meantime, the operation of these plants will be halted in the spring months, when we have high levels of fine dust.”
Fine dust levels have worsened of late — warnings were issued in 12 cities and counties nationwide the first weekend of May, as concentrations reached up to 330 micrograms per cubic meter.
Under the plan, eight of 10 plants which were established 30 years ago and earlier will stop operations for the month of June. Starting from next year, the 10 plants will be shut down from March to June.
The 10 plants will be permanently shut down within Moon’s term.
These were among Moon’s election pledges, as emissions from coal-fired power plants have been identified as one of the major sources of fine dust, along with those from old diesel vehicles and industrial dust coming from China.
Moon also ordered senior secretary of social affairs Kim Su-hyun to establish a body to come up with measures to counter the fine dust.
In addition, he pledged to install measuring instruments at 11,000 schools across the nation and aid schools to build indoor physical education facilities.
Currently there are 59 coal-fired power plants in operation across the nation. The 10 old plants have an installed capacity of 3.3 gigawatts, which is 10.6 percent of the installed capacity of all plants (31.3 gigawatts). However, the 10 plants emit 33,000 tons of pollutants, which is 19.4 percent of emissions from the total number of plants (169,000 tons).
Cheong Wa Dae expects halting operations of eight plants will reduce the generation of fine dust by 1 to 2 percent.
Moon said there is no need for concerns on energy supply shortage.
“The country’s energy supply has been designed so that power facilities are 20 percent in surplus. In addition, from March to June, the energy demand is 70 to 80 percent of that of summer or winter months, so there will be no problem with shutting down the plants during those months,” he said.
However, he did not elaborate on compensation measures for plant workers other than training for other jobs.