Trump Pushes 'Clean Coal'; Korea Reduces Carbon with CCU [Paek Jongmin's Shockwave]

Concerns Grow Over Weakened Carbon Reduction Efforts Under Trump
Securing Carbon Reduction Technologies Becomes Key for Fossil Energy Leadership
South Korea Prepares for the Carbon Reduction Era with CCU Technology

On the 8th (local time), U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order at the White House to promote the development of the American coal industry. The executive order includes provisions to halt discriminatory policies against the coal industry within the United States and to increase permits and funding for new coal projects. It also includes policies to stop the closure of coal-fired power plants and to stabilize the power grid through coal power generation.

U.S. President Donald Trump clenched his fist toward miners after signing an executive order to support the coal industry at the White House on the 8th (local time). Photo by EPA Yonhap News

Last month, President Trump also declared his intention to strengthen coal-fired power generation in response to China and put this into action. His decision coincides with the process of shaking up policies aimed at addressing climate change amid increasing electricity consumption in the era of artificial intelligence (AI).

During his first term, President Trump also advocated for strengthening the coal industry, but it remained mere rhetoric. The challenge of securing electricity with low carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the AI era has summoned not only nuclear power but also nuclear fusion power, which was once considered a distant prospect. In this context, President Trump has brought coal-fired power generation back into the ring.

President Trump even announced plans to utilize the Defense Production Act to revitalize coal mining. This recalls the application of the Defense Production Act during the COVID-19 pandemic to secure masks.

President Donald Trump stated on his social media that he has instructed the administration to pursue energy production using beautiful and clean coal. Photo by President Trump SNS

"Coal is beautiful and clean."

Is President Trump's statement, which began in 2017, accurate? Coal is far from having a clean image. When burned, coal emits smoke and dust. Naturally, it also releases carbon dioxide. For this reason, reducing coal-fired power generation is a global trend.

So, is there a way to make coal clean?

A representative example is the technology that captures and utilizes or stores carbon dioxide generated during power generation, steel production, and various industrial processes. This is the carbon reduction technology known as CCS (Carbon Capture Storage) and CCU (Carbon Capture Utilization).

President Trump also claimed that coal could become clean through a purification process. CCS technology started with the goal of making coal clean. In the 1980s, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) named its program to develop technology to reduce air pollutants from coal "clean coal."

Technologies that remove or reduce regulated air pollutants such as sulfur oxides (SO2) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emitted during coal combustion have recently evolved into CCS.

CCS attempts to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capturing carbon dioxide generated during coal combustion before it is emitted and isolating it in underground or seabed storage facilities. CCU has a similar meaning but differs in that the captured carbon can be used as a product to promote other industrial processes.

CCU focuses on utilizing carbon dioxide as a resource. It involves using carbon dioxide as a chemical raw material or converting microorganisms that can fix carbon dioxide into biomass and then into useful substances.

The Biden administration has allocated about $7 billion (approximately 8.9 trillion KRW) to CCS technology through the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and encouraged investment, but it is widely expected that this budget will disappear under the Trump administration.

Many attendees at the global energy event "CERA Week" held in Houston, Texas, last March agreed that the CCS industry is in crisis due to reduced government support. Jesse Clark, head of the Carbon Capture Coalition, argued that "CCU should be defined as an issue of economic competitiveness and U.S. leadership."

This is an approach aligned with the Trump administration's "America First" policy and its support for manufacturing and fossil fuel industries, aiming to prevent budget cuts. He also warned that without financial support, all CCS projects would disappear.

Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum, claimed, "Using carbon dioxide in oil drilling can secure more crude oil compared to conventional drilling methods." Occidental is developing a technology called DAC (Direct Air Capture) that extracts carbon dioxide from the air. While the U.S. has focused on CCS, the results have fallen short of expectations.

CCS requires massive capital investment to separate carbon dioxide from industrial processes and store it deep underground. It has also faced difficulties in alleviating concerns about soil contamination. Progress is inevitably slow.

In this situation, President Trump's policy is bound to be fatal to the spread of CCS. South Korea, which also emphasizes manufacturing, cannot ignore carbon reduction technologies. However, South Korea is preparing for the carbon reduction era in a different way from the United States.

A representative example is the recently launched "Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) Initiative," led by the Ministry of Science and ICT.

This plan focuses on converting captured carbon dioxide into valuable products rather than simply storing it underground. At the launch ceremony attended by about 150 experts from industry, academia, and research institutions, including the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, Hanwha Total, POSCO Holdings, GS Caltex, Hyundai Construction, Lotte Chemical, and Buhung Industry, the initiative presented the goal of creating high value-added products through CCU that can reduce carbon emissions while driving new economic growth.

Lee Young-guk, president of the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology, emphasized, "CCU technology is essential for transforming the chemical fuel-based linear economy structure into a circular economy structure."

For South Korea, a major petrochemical exporting country, CCU is more than just an environmental technology; it can become a new growth engine utilizing the existing industrial base. Major Korean petrochemical companies can produce valuable chemical products such as methanol, polymers, and synthetic fuels using captured CO2, which reduces the carbon footprint while increasing the added value of the existing chemical industry.

Especially in industries where carbon emissions are inevitable, such as cement, steel, and petrochemicals, CCU is regarded as almost the only means for large-scale carbon dioxide reduction.

Participants at the 'CCU Initiative Launch Ceremony' held on the 4th at the Science and Technology Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, are taking a commemorative photo. Photo by Baek Jong-min, Tech Specialist

At the launch ceremony, Lee Chang-yoon, first vice minister of the Ministry of Science and ICT, emphasized, "Carbon neutrality is a task that must be successfully accomplished for the survival of future generations, and the importance of CCU technology as a scientific and technological solution to realize this is growing." The government also introduced an expert forecast that the global CCU market will reach about 800 trillion KRW (approximately $580 billion) by 2040.

The chemical industry holds a unique position in the South Korean economy. It accounts for about 4.5% of the gross domestic product (GDP) and serves as a foundational industry supplying key materials to major manufacturing sectors such as automobiles, electronics, and shipbuilding. As of 2024, South Korea ranks fifth in the world in chemical product production, exporting chemical products worth about $150 billion annually.

In this situation, decarbonizing the chemical industry is essential to maintain its status and achieve the 2050 carbon neutrality goal. The solution is CCU. Major Korean chemical companies are already expanding investments in CCU technology. LG Chem is developing technology to produce polycarbonate using carbon dioxide, SK Innovation has commercialized eco-friendly lubricant manufacturing technology using CO2, and Hanwha TotalEnergies is demonstrating technology to convert carbon dioxide into petrochemical raw materials through a large-scale CCU demonstration project.

A representative example is the "CCU Demonstration Mega Project" decided last year. With a budget of 47 billion KRW, this project aims to concretize large-scale CCU pilot projects across five major carbon-intensive sectors: petroleum (Jeonnam), petrochemicals (Chungnam), cement (Gangwon), steel (Pohang), and coal power generation (Chungnam). The goal is to create a complete industrial ecosystem connecting carbon dioxide sources and CCU product manufacturing. Demonstrations to reduce carbon dioxide from coal-fired power generation will also be conducted.

The project targets include major carbon-emitting companies in petrochemicals, cement, steel, and power generation. If demonstrated successfully, it could have a significant ripple effect across the industry. Kim Tae-young, head of the Future Energy and Environmental Technology Division at the Ministry of Science and ICT, explained, "CCU can be used to produce basic chemical raw materials like natural methanol and sustainable aviation fuel (SAF)."

Park Won-woo, emeritus professor of business administration at Seoul National University, advised, "Since CCU technology is an important starting point for carbon neutrality, the government and companies should actively take on the challenge."