October 25, 2000	atimes.com

The Koreas PYONGYANG WATCH Lighten their darkness By Aidan Foster-Carter To call North Korea a land of darkness sounds tendentious at this time of growing detente. But it's the literal truth. Satellite photos of the peninsula at night show a mass of bright lights all over South Korea. North of the Demilitarized Zone, by contrast, all is black - except a faint glimmer around Pyongyang. True, you'd expect South Korea to shine brightly - it's 84 percent urban and one of the world's most densely populated countries. But it's no secret that for several years North Korea has been suffering from a critical electric power shortage, as both cause and effect of its wider economic catastrophe. Ironically, the north was once the peninsula's power house. Before 1945, the Japanese colonial regime put northern Korea's abundant hydro-electric resources to work; in particular by building a series of dams along the Yalu River, to supply both Korea and the Manchukuo puppet state. In 1947, it was a body blow to the south when the north abruptly switched off the power across the 38th parallel. Half a century on, the boot is massively on the other foot. A recent article in the Seoul daily Dong-a Ilbo sheds light on the North's new darkness, giving rare figures. As of 1998, North Korea's generating capacity was 7.39 million kilowatts annually, or about one-sixth of South Korea's. But not even all of that is currently useable. 1.09 million kW-worth is fit only for the scrapheap, and more than half (4.3 million kW) needs repairing. So facilities more or less in working order have a total capacity of barely 2 million kW. Put another way, only a quarter of North Korea's power stations are currently working. Power actually generated - as distinct from capacity - is estimated at 1.7 million kilowatt hours. Transmission losses further reduce useable output to 1.14kWh - about one-thirteenth of South Korea's figure, or equivalent to a single medium-sized southern city, such as the port of Inchon near Seoul. So what is North Korea's problem? Easier perhaps to ask: what isn't? As with the North's once strong industrial base in general, most plants are both outmoded and outworn. So is the national grid, hence the further leakage in transmission. Not only output but also inputs are a problem, with natural disasters inflicting a double whammy. Hydro power has been hit both by flood damage in the mid-1990s and low water levels due to drought this year; while coal supplies - in recent years the North had shifted more toward thermal generation - have yet to recover from the flooding of many mines in 1995 and 1996. The few oil-fired plants shut with the end of cheap oil from Moscow, partially reopening since Kedo (Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization) started supplying half a million tons per year. Shortage of cash restricts getting spare parts for Soviet-built power stations - not all of which Pyongyang ever fully paid for. Comradeship is also in short supply along the Yalu these days. One plant at Supung only produces a third of its 700,000kW capacity - and China takes 90 percent of that, as North Korea for years has put no money into renovations. As Lenin might have put it, what is to be done? Typically, North Korea has been organizing mass campaigns to build more power stations, with a shift back to hydropower. Most of these schemes are small-scale and local, but officials in Pyongyang have sounded a skeptical note as to how much use this is for factory as opposed to household purposes. Bigger projects are also in the works, like the Anbyon dam whose completion was announced on October 8. Yet the absence of any figures for new generating capacity makes one wonder if much of this activity is just to keep the masses and the army occupied. The recent inter-Korean thaw offers a new source of badly needed help - which at recent meetings the North has privately but explicitly asked for, from the Southern government and private firms. In fact this is already under way, in the form of the two light water reactors (LWRs) being built at Kumho on the east coast by Kedo, the consortium formed to implement the 1994 Agreed Framework with the US which defused the then nuclear crisis. Yet the LWRs will not be ready till 2007, and the Northern grid as it stands is not ready to handle them. Critics of nuclear power, which is predominant in the South, advocate exploring wind, solar and tidal sources. Another option is for Seoul to supply coal or gas to North Korea's existing power plants, warts and all. But the obvious way to make an immediate impact is to reverse the pre-1947 picture - and pipe power north. With roads and railways now being relinked, why not electricity? It's hard to see how Hyundai's planned new mammoth industrial zone, just across the border in Kaesong, will function otherwise. Kepco, South Korea's monopoly supplier and main generator, has had a team ready to head north since last March. Even this is not straightforward, due to differences in voltage and quality - and much will go to waste unless the Northern grid is upgraded. Seoul is reportedly in touch with former East German engineers who once worked in North Korea. One way or another, it will take South Korean resources to switch the Northern lights back on and power Pyongyang's recovery. (Special to Asia Times Online)

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