earticle

영어

Development of science and technology is the driving force for the creation of economic value and growth of a country. However, the positive effect of the technology has inherently the potential to cause unintended adverse effects such as environmental problems, ethical problems. Therefore, considering the minimization of negative effects of the technology from the initial stage of technology development is important to emphasize as much as to maximize the benefits of the technology. In particular, modern society began to understand the birth and evolution of technologies into a sort of social phenomenon, the interests of the general public in science and technology was high, and thus social consensus about the positive and negative impacts of science and technology has become an important element in the technology planning stage. Korean government has recently recognized the importance of the climate technologies as part of the solution of the climate change issue and has promoted a national plan to develop them. However, while the climate technology is perceived as technical solution for solving climate change problems, there are also opinions that it can lead to other environmental problems. Therefore, it is difficult to ensure the environmental sustainability of the climate technology without identifying the potential threat of the technology and also having to establish a countermeasure as well. The purpose of this study are what are negative factors that need to be improved in order to ensure the environmental sustainability for the fuel cell in addressing climate change and to propose the policies to minimize it. For this purpose, this study reviewed papers regarding discussions related environmental performance of the fuel cell and environment impact assessment as well. In addition, this study conducted a life cycle assessment of fuel cell based on Korean local data, and proposed policies to improve the environmental sustainability of the fuel cell. As a result of LCA, this study was drawn in two policy directions of 'greening of hydrogen production methods' and 'recycling of raw materials and products of the fuel cell'.