열리는 북극해와 대한민국의 지리적 입지

The Economist - 2025.01.25

 

 

이번주 이코노미스트 기사는 기후 변화로 인한 북극의 경제적 기회를 다루고 있습니다.

Claude 인공지능이 정리한 주요 내용은 다음과 같습니다:

1. 북극 빙하 감소
· 북극은 지구 평균보다 4배 빠르게 온난화
· 1980년대 이후 빙하 체적이 70% 이상 감소
· 2030년 이전 첫 무빙빙 날 예상

경제적 기회
· 새로운 해상 운송로 개척 (북방항로, 북서항로, 극지 해상로)
· 아시아-유럽 간 항해 거리와 시간 단축
· 수산업: 새로운 어종 출현, 어장 확대

광물 자원 개발
· 전기차 배터리, 태양광 패널 등에 필요한 '녹색' 광물 풍부
· 그린란드는 50개 중 43개 전략 광물 보유
· 희토류 매장량은 2023년 채굴량의 120배

도전 과제
· 극지 환경에서의 자원 개발 기술 필요
· 투자자, 정부, 현지인들의 동의 필요
· 지정학적 경쟁과 협력 문제

결론적으로, 북극은 향후 수십 년간 중요한 경제·지정학적 공간으로 부상할 전망입니다.

라고 AI가 요약해줬습니다.

 

그렇다면, 이제부턴 인간의 힘으로 북극해 항로와 관련한 내용을 좀 더 심도 깊게 알아보겠습니다.

 

 

전통적인 북극해 루트로는 아래 세가지가 있습니다.

1. NSR (Northern Sea Route) : 유럽과 아시아를 잇는 얘가 제일 중요함

2. NWP (Northwest Passage)

3. TSR (Transpolar Sea Route = Polar Sea Route)

전통적인 3가지 북극해 루트

 

빨간색으로 표시된  NSR이 우리에겐 가장 중요한 루트임.

관련국으로는 '유럽-러시아-한국-일본-중국'

 

빗금친 지역은 겨울에 얼음이 얼어서 통행이 쉽지 않은데, 최근 지구 온난화로 점점 통행 횟수가 증가하고 있음.

게다가 겨울인데도 살얼음 정도로 정도라면, 쇄빙선 동원하면 정규 Route가 될 수도 있지 않을까 생각함.

 

자주 얼어버리는 조기 빨간색 동그라미만 어떻게 하면, NSR이 정규 루트가 될 수 있을텐데..

 

 

위 지도의 빨간색 동그라미 (Northern Sea Route)가 중요한 섬을 하나 가리고 있습니다.

바나나와 같이 생긴 섬이 얼마나 중요하냐면, 아래 천연가스 매장 지도를 보면 알 수 있음.

 

 

바나나처럼 생긴 섬 좌우로 천연가스가 무지하게 매장되어 있음.

중국이 노리는 천연가스가 야말(Yamal)반도의 천연가스임.

 

 

https://geowiki.tistory.com/1604

중국이 제안한 Polar Silk Road

 

 

북극해가 열리면, 수에즈 운하를 통과하지 않아도 되니 전세계 물류에 큰 지각변동을 가져올 것임.

그렇다면 지리적 위치가 갖고 있는 장점에도 변동이 올텐데,

 

북극해 정규 항로(NSR)가 뚫리면 새롭게 부상할 항구는 어디일까? 라는 점이 매우 궁금하다.

일단 후보지를 알아보자.

 

NSR을 통해 운반한 물류의 종착지로는 어디가 좋을까?

 

내가 생각한 최적의 후보지는 블라디보스톡과 원산만 - 가장 많은 물류를 운반하게 될 중국으로써는 통탄할 일

 

중국에게 필요한 건 뭐?

1. 블라디보스톡을 맘대로 이용할 수 있는 권리를 얻거나, 

2. 차선책으로 두만강 하류라도 이용해서, 중국 국경쪽까지 육상 교통수단으로 운반하던지

 

북극해가 다 녹기전까지 이 둘중 하나는 얻어야 중국이 북극해 항로 개통의 혜택을 입게 될 것이다.

 

 

북한은 두가지 보물을 갖고 있는데 

1. 앞에서도 말한 NSR과 직접 맞닿을 수 있는 두만강 하류지역

2. 동해로 뻥 뚫린 원산만

 

2번은 통일 한국의 희망이 될 수 도 있는게

아래 위성사진을 보면, 원산-서울 방향의 수많은 구조선을 볼 수 있다. 

(사진을 자세히보면 북북동방향으로 수 많은 실선이 있는 것을 볼 수 있음)

구조선은 딱딱한 지표위에 미리 금을 그어놓은 것으로

철도나 도로를 건설할 때 비용을 대폭 절감시켜줄 수 있다는 장점이 있다

 

ㅅ

 

 NSR과 접한 항구중에 한-중-일로 뻗어가기에 이보다 좋은 항구 위치는 없을 듯 하다.

게다가 배후에 평야도 이렇게 넓으니 물류 창고나 배후 공단을 건설하는데도 큰 문제가 없을 듯 하고..

항국입지, 주변 지형, 서울과의 접근성 모두 좋아보이는데...... 김정은 이후 어떻게 될지 궁금하다

 

 

 

기사 원문

 

Title <The Arctic : climate change’s great economic opportunity>

 

Subtitle : An enormous prize is on offer. When might it be grasped?

 

FOR BEARS of both the market and polar kind, a planet without an ice cap is a tragedy. The Arctic is warming four times faster than the world at large, causing ice to shrink by an area the size of Austria each year. Since the 1980s the volume of ice has fallen by 70% or more. The Arctic’s first ice- free day may occur before 2030.

 

A warming Arctic should yield enormous dividends. Retreating ice will create shipping shortcuts. Maritime access and melting glaciers will make it easier to extract minerals, just when the world craves resources from the Arctic’s virgin geology. Warming waters may entice hordes of fish. This could up-end trade, energy and geopolitics. The prospect has sparked a rush of diplomats and miners. In December China set a world record, unveiling a “polar-ready” 58,000-tonne cargo ship. One red-hatted politician has talked of seizing Greenland. The obstacles, though, are as big as the opportunities. Last month Norway paused plans for deep-sea mining; Russia’s own efforts have halted. Can the prize be grasped? And on what timescale?

 

One benefit already on offer is bigger catches. Some species, such as snow crab and Alaska’s king salmon, are struggling in warmer, somewhat acidified water. And an international agreement has restricted fishing in the high seas. But this is more than balanced by the fact that species from southern and temperate waters, including Atlantic cod, are moving to areas such as the Barents and Bering seas. Nutrient-rich water could also help populations grow faster, while receding ice opens up new grounds and lengthens fishing seasons. Mackerel did not arrive off Greenland until 2011. By 2014 the oily fish represented 23% of the island’s total export earnings.

 

Such benefits may pale in comparison to those offered by new shipping routes. To grasp how climate change may transform them, see the map below. Melting ice could open three paths. The first, known as the Northern Sea Route (NSR), hugs the Russian coast to connect the Barents Sea with the Bering Strait. A second, dubbed the North-West Passage (NWP), runs along the North American Arctic coastline, from the Beaufort Sea to Baffin Bay. Last comes the Transpolar Sea Route (TSR), which runs over the North Pole.

 

All three could shorten trips between Asia, North America and Europe, which account for most shipping, saving on fuel and wages. They could also avoid chokepoints such as the Panama and Suez canals, which are busy, charge fees and, in the case of Suez, link to dangerous waters.

 

Exactly when these promises might be fulfilled depends on the route. The NWP, which runs through Canada’s Arctic Archipelago, consists of narrow, winding channels. It is melting more slowly than the NSR. Although it stretches 1,500km, it has only one deep-water port and lacks emergency facilities. Canada claims the NWP is in its waters; America and Europe deem it an international strait. The route is also shallow, limiting the size of vessels.

 

The TSR dodges many Of these problems. It traverses the Central Arctic Ocean, which is much deeper. It avoids territorial waters, cooling the political temperature. And it provides the shortest route from the North Atlantic to the Pacific. Proponents foresee thousands of vessels a year shuttling between North America and Asia, stopping en route at Alaska’s Dutch Harbour. Even when the ice is gone, though, the route will be littered with icebergs, making it navigable only by icebreakers. The vision of thousands of ships may have to wait until 2050 or so.

 

Sea change

 

That makes the NSR the most promising option available. The route has been open to ice-resistant ships in the summer almost every year since 2005. Sections are navigable all year, albeit with the help of an icebreaker escort, which is expensive. Traffic is rising nevertheless: a record 92 ships navigated the NSR last year, up from 19 in 2016. As ice continues to melt, the NSR could appeal to two types of voyages. One is traffic focused on the transport of resources from Russia’s far north. The country has long aimed to secure year-round energy exports by shipping liquefied natural gas to Europe in the winter (for heating) and Asia in the summer (for cooling). Although that grand vision receded after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, when Europe cut some links with its neighbour, the NSR could still help Russia ship coal, gas and metals to China and India.

 

The route may also lure some of the traffic connecting Asia to Europe. It is unlikely to be used much for container ships, which tend to hop along hubs in the Gulf or South-East Asia rather than travel the whole route between Europe and Asia, says Rasmus Bertelsen of the UiT Arctic University of Norway. The north’s rough seas also risk thwarting the just-in-time logistics of the modern goods trade. However, it could reduce the distance between Rotterdam and Shanghai by 5,000km, or 25%, and slash the journey from 30 to 14 days. As a consequence, despite the route’s defects, it could still boost overall trade between Asia and the EU by 6%, according to Eddy Bekkers, now at the World Trade Organisation, and colleagues.

 

The Arctic’s last prize concerns commodities. This used to mean hydrocarbons. The region is thought to hold 13% of the world’s undiscovered oil and 30% of untapped natural gas. But its deposits are among the costliest to exploit—not ideal when demand for oil is flagging and a glut of natural gas, produced more cheaply in America and Qatar, is on the way.

 

Instead, the hope lies with the Arctic’s “green” minerals, which global warming is making more accessible. They include cobalt, graphite, lithium and nickel, important ingredients in electric-car batteries; zinc, used in solar panels and wind turbines; copper, required for all sorts of things electric; and rare earths, crucial to many types of green and military equipment. Niche metals including titanium, tungsten and vanadium, used to make “super-alloys”, are also prized. Greenland looks especially well resourced in this regard. The island has reserves of 43 out of 50 minerals deemed “critical” by the American government. Its known rare earths amount to 42m tonnes, some 120 times more than the world mined in 2023.

 

Most of the Arctic’s minerals have not been mapped out in detail, notes Per Kalvig, who co-wrote a geological survey of Greenland. As such, any exploitation could be at least a decade away. But the International Energy Agency, an official forecaster, reckons that the global market for such minerals will double in value by 2040, if countries stick to existing climate pledges. Western countries are also eager to discover new sources so as to bypass China, which dominates supply.

 

Firms that use artificial intelligence to sift through historical and scientific data in order to identify deposits could speed up progress. Ice-capable rigs, autonomous mining vehicles, heavy-lifting drones and other technologies are being developed to withstand the Arctic. Miners must learn how to extract and process metals that are often found in low concentrations or mingled with others. Seven out of eight Arctic nations are members of NATO; they may have to reinvent China’s techniques if they or their partners decide to limit its involvement in future projects.

 

Cold comfort

 

Three types of people must also be convinced: investors, national governments and locals. Lumina Sustainable Materials, Greenland’s sole mine, offers a preview of the challenges. Set up in 2013, it was first licensed to make a refined form of anorthosite, a light-coloured rock used in fibreglass and paint. Yet the delicate material was too difficult to ship. By 2020 the mine had exported little. It took a new deep-sea port, and sustained lobbying by the firm’s new management—no longer in Vancouver but in Greenland—for Lumina to be allowed to export the rock in coarser form. Production is set to increase to 210,000 tonnes in 2025, up from 35,000 in 2019, all of which will be shipped abroad. The mine sits on a deposit of some 4bn tonnes.

 

In recent history, the Arctic’s allure has been as a place on which to put garrisons, spy devices and nuclear weapons. Plenty of obstacles may prevent its transformation into a modern El Dorado. Pooling the cash, tech and goodwill required to spark a boom will involve more time and effort than merely waiting for the ice to go. Competition without co-operation risks holding back progress. But the prize on offer is such that, over coming decades, the Arctic will surely become an economic as well as a geopolitical venue.