| Title |
A Joint Carrying-Capacity Framework for Screening Semiconductor Megacluster Sites under the Energy-Water Nexus |
| DOI |
https://doi.org/10.12652/Ksce.2026.46.5.0433 |
| Keywords |
에너지·물 넥서스; 수용용량; 반도체 클러스터; 확정공급량 신뢰도; 기후변화 시나리오; 다기준 의사결정 Energy-Water nexus; Carrying capacity; Semiconductor cluster; Firm-yield reliability; Climate change scenarios; Multi-criteria decision analysis |
| Abstract |
The Yongin semiconductor megacluster will require about 764,000 t/day of industrial water and more than 15 GW of power at full operation, and even after the integrated water-supply project a deficit of about 1,072,000 m³/day of industrial water (1,097,000 m³/day including municipal water) is projected by 2050. Where both power and water jointly govern feasibility, the conventional site-first approach, which fixes large facilities first and fits infrastructure afterwards, is structurally inadequate. This study inverts that order, locating and sizing clusters by the joint carrying capacity of the energy and water systems. The core method is a non-compensatory co-limiting aggregation reflecting the physical non-substitutability of power and water (Liebig's law of the minimum), so the smaller resource governs capacity. Water is treated as a hard hydrological constraint rather than mere proximity. The reservoir firm-yield reliability model is used to project how dam-level firm yield responds to the SSP signals; for the site-level water input, however, the published dam supply capacities of K-water are used rather than firm yield re-estimated from observed inflow series. Future availability is assessed by taking the reported annual-precipitation change (+21.5?38.7 %) of the Korea 1 km SSP scenarios, produced by the National Institute of Agricultural Sciences (NIAS, Rural Development Administration) and certified by the KMA as the 2022 national standard (CMIP6 18-GCM; Heo et al., 2024), as input, translating it to runoff change by streamflow elasticity, and propagating inter-model spread and drought intensification by Monte Carlo. Suitability is evaluated under three lenses, present readiness, alternative potential via resource linkage, and future availability, and synthesised by a weighted geometric mean (partially non-compensatory), cross-checked with TOPSIS and SMAA rank-acceptability. Applied to real geometry with real published lifeline data (K-water dam supply capacities; 2023 regional power statistics), the binding constraint partitions cleanly into energy-binding (Han basin) and water-binding (south) sites, and an asymmetry in linkage feasibility, energy readily relieved by grid reinforcement and water hardly by inter-basin transfer, governs relative suitability. A constraint-relief analysis shows that power-rich coastal water-scarce sites can desalinate surplus power to make up the water shortfall, expanding the cluster up to the size at which power, rather than water, becomes the limit (Saemangeum 2.6 → ~12.8 GW). |