Korea: “Green” Mayor Transforms Seoul – Will Country Follow?

Seoul, South Korea Mayor Oh Se-hoon is among a new breed of South Korean politicians who increasingly stake their political fortunes on so-called green growth.

Seoul, South Korea Mayor Oh Se-hoon is among a new breed of South Korean politicians who increasingly stake their political fortunes on so-called green growth.

Seoul, South Korea Mayor Oh Se-hoon is among a new breed of South Korean politicians who increasingly stake their political fortunes on so-called green growth.

Seoul, South Korea Mayor Oh Se-hoon is among a new breed of South Korean politicians who increasingly stake their political fortunes on so-called green growth.

For Mr. Oh, that means creating jobs based on environmentally friendly technologies and figuring out how to make this city, home to one-fifth of the country’s 49 million people, a healthier, more pleasant place to live.

Since taking office in 2006, Mr. Oh has tried to make the city look nicer and greener. [br]

Under his Design City slogan, the municipal authorities carted away urban eyesores like leaky shacks for shoe shiners and replaced them with artfully designed, government-subsidized kiosks.

They revamped the old city center, turning part of its Kwanghwamun Boulevard into a plaza where children can skate in winter.

“My goal in the changing of the face of Seoul is all related to enhancing its attractiveness,” said Mr. Oh, who is seeking re-election as his four-year term winds down. “If the city is attractive, people, information and capital flow in. This in turn creates economic re-vitality and it also creates a lot of jobs.”

Perhaps the issue Mr. Oh has pursued most successfully is air pollution.

While some of his competitors in the election may dismiss some of Mr. Oh’s initiatives as gimmicky, even they concede that the pink haze that used to envelop the metropolis has largely disappeared.

The amount of pollutants in Seoul’s air has dropped 20 percent in the last four years, according to city data.

His administration began by hosing down the streets at night to cut down on dust and started replacing conventional buses with vehicles that use natural gas.

Then Seoul joined 13 other major world cities in December in a vow to become more hospitable to electric vehicles.

Although cities are home to only half the world’s population, they generate about 80 percent of all carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.

Seoul began experimenting with hybrid taxis and plans to introduce its first electric buses in April.

Within 10 years, the city will replace all 9,000 buses and 72,000 taxis with electric or hybrid vehicles, Mr. Oh said. It will spend 178 billion won ($156 million) on the effort in the next five years.

To encourage the shift, Seoul is buying electric cars for public use and offering subsidies for transport companies switching to green vehicles.

It also promised motorists who drive electric cars discounts on parking fees and congestion charges.

“Our political and administrative needs to improve air quality make Seoul an early adopter of green cars,” said Kim Hwang-rae, head of the city government’s green car team.

“South Korea started late in the green car revolution, but the public sector is leading the way, giving the industries an impetus to come along” …

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Underlining – yet again – how CRUCIAL political leadership is to any kind of progress in general —

something Obama should consider in his way-too-“go along / get along” relationship with the TBTF banks and insurance companies —

AND to environmental issues in particular, as the sad story below about the demise of “cap and trade” — itself hardly a “radical” idea — also makes disturbingly clear.

Here’s more from this exciting Times article:

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[An electric tram] was developed by Kaist, the country’s top government-financed university of science and technology, without involvement from major carmakers.

Mr. Oh recognized the potential of the new technology and his city financed its application, [and his] supporters describe it as a noble experiment that could revolutionize public transportation in South Korea and beyond.

Like other electric vehicles, it has a battery. But it does not need to be plugged in, and it does not need overhead cables.

The power source embedded in the road allows the vehicle to have a battery one-fifth the size needed by other current electric models;

when it is driving along a stretch of pavement without a power strip, it runs on battery power.

If only 20 percent of the roads in Seoul — at places like bus stops, parking spaces and sections leading up to stop signs — were embedded with electric power strips, all of the cars in the city could run electrically, Kaist engineers said.

If the entire country adopted the technology, it would need two more nuclear power plants to power all its vehicles with electricity, they estimated.

Mr. Oh’s green vehicle campaign comes at a critical juncture for South Korean carmakers.

South Korean firms invested for decades to catch up internationally in internal combustion engine technology.

Hyundai and Kia are just beginning to become global brands, as rivals in Japan and the United States struggle through financial and quality crises.

Now, like other automakers, they face tough decisions on how quickly to move into the new field of electric vehicles.

Hyundai, which has introduced a hybrid car and has introduced a prototype electric car, considered participating in Kaist’s in-ground electricity program but did not jump in because it thought the technology was still a long way from being usable in an affordable car, said Lee Ki-sang, a senior vice president for Hyundai in charge of developing hybrid vehicles.

Engineers have yet to reduce a significant loss of electricity in the wireless transmission from underground power strips to the vehicle, Mr. Lee said.

Whether cities and the national highway authorities will invest in embedding their roads with electricity strips is another question that kept Hyundai on the sidelines, Mr. Lee said.

If these obstacles are overcome, “there is no reason for us to hesitate,” he said, “but for now, we are watching.”

“In some way, I fully understand why they are so reluctant,” said Suh Nam-pyo, president of Kaist, a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States.

Yet he urged South Korean automakers not to repeat the mistake of Eastman Kodak, the American photographic film manufacturer that was late to embrace digital cameras.

But Mr. Suh himself is still working to persuade Seoul to allow his electric vehicles into the city’s bus lanes.

Although the mayor has likened his meeting with Mr. Suh to an “encounter with a wise man,” he said he would wait until Kaist did further safety and efficiency testing before giving his full support.

Mr. Suh says that after decades of copying and improving technologies developed abroad, it is time for South Korea to try a new technology that no one has used before.

“The greatest challenge is not developing technology but getting approval from the Seoul city and the government,” he said. “I dare say this is one of the most significant technical gains in the 21st century.”

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Underscoring AGAIN the absolute necessity of political leadership — in all ways, and at all levels — in promoting the intial, often expensive, stages of fundamental technological innovation,

as we argued so extensively in the Story about the movement of Applied Materials to Xi’an, and other leading “clean green technology” to China.

From the New York Times, March 28 2010