The Ministry of Science and ICT will actively promote private sector-led carbon neutrality technological innovation.
On the 4th, the Ministry of Science and ICT announced that it held the launch ceremony for the 'Carbon Capture and Utilization (CCU) Initiative' at the Seoul Science and Technology Center. Attending the event were Vice Minister Lee Chang-yoon and more than 150 experts from industry, academia, and research.
The CCU initiative launched on this day is a consultative body aimed at expanding the on-site application of CCU technology, which captures carbon dioxide and converts it into useful substances, while driving discussions on legal and institutional improvements centered around the private sector. CCU is a core technology that can achieve carbon neutrality and simultaneously create high-value-added industries, with the global market size projected to reach approximately 800 trillion won by 2040.
Along with this launch, the Ministry of Science and ICT also announced a key promotion strategy for fostering CCU technology. In the short term, it plans to designate and operate CCU-focused research laboratories to secure leading technologies in each field and promote systematic research-industry linkages. It will also promote a global flagship project for CCU to collaborate with leading countries on joint development and demonstration of CCU technology.
In the medium to long term, the plan includes promoting large-scale demonstration projects for CCU that connect corporations, local governments, and government-funded research institutes, establishing an industrial nurturing system that links carbon dioxide supply to product production. In particular, large-scale demonstration projects will first be promoted in carbon dioxide-intensive industries such as cement and petrochemicals, followed by efforts to expand to other companies.
Additionally, to activate corporations' entry into the CCU industry, it plans to establish detailed operational regulations on technology and product certification standards, as well as procedures for validating specialized companies. The relevant support systems will also be continuously supplemented based on feedback from the private sector.
Vice Minister Lee Chang-yoon noted, 'Achieving carbon neutrality is a task that must be successfully completed for the survival of future generations, and the importance of CCU technology as a scientific and technological solution to realize this is growing increasingly.' He added, 'The Ministry of Science and ICT will also closely communicate with the private sector based on the CCU initiative and actively promote technology development, industrial infrastructure creation, and institutional improvements.'