Unravelling the Contested Nature of Carbon Capture and Storage

Abstract

Our climate is changing. Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has been identified as an important technology to reduce CO2 emissions in order to avoid dangerous climate change. The implementation of CCS is however slow and CCS is publicly contested. This thesis focuses on the debate on this technology. In fact CCS is not just one technology, but a set of several hundred different CCS chains, having their own advantages and drawbacks. Some consider CCS therefore as a multi tool that can be used in all kind of different applications. For opponents it resembles more a multi-headed dragon, since each time one chain is eliminated, a new configuration arises. This thesis examines how CCS is perceived by the general public, politicians and scientists and unravels the underlying considerations on which their opinions are based.