South Korea’s Plans for Tidal Power: When a “Green” Solution Creates More Problems

Yekang Ko, a Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, and Derek K. Schubert, a Landscape Architect at John Northmore Roberts & Associates and President of SAVE International, respond to “Case Study of Green Economy Policies: Korea” by Sun-Jin Yun and Myungrae Cho (Nautilus Institute Special Report, September 13, 2011). Yun and Cho argue that the center of South Korea’s Green Growth clearly favors economic growth, national industrial competitiveness, and an energy portfolio emphasizing nuclear power, but puts little effort toward promoting energy democracy and justice for decentralized renewable energy systems and local communities. As a complementary study to Yun and Cho’s report, the authors introduce a fierce controversy between large-scale tidal power and the local efforts toward preserving wetlands and fisheries in Incheon, South Korea.