Unravelling the Contested Nature of Carbon Capture and Storage Sander van Egmond CCS Unravelling the Contested Nature of Carbon Capture and Storage Sander van Egmond This research has been carried out in the context of the CATO-2- programme. CATO-2 is the Dutch national research programme on CO2 Capture and Storage. The programme is financially supported by the Dutch government (Ministry of Economic Affairs) and the CATO-2 consortium parties. ISBN: 978-90-393-6573-1 © 2016, Sander van Egmond, Utrecht, The Netherlands All rights reserved. Cover: During one of the CATO conferences I had an interesting conversation with Prof. dr. Krijn de Jong who compared CCS with either a multi-headed dragon from the perspective of opponents or with a multi cleaning towel for proponents (de Jong, 2010). The latter I transformed into a Swiss pocket knife or multi tool on which was the inspiration for the cover. De Jong used this metaphor as CCS consists of hundreds of different chains, all having their own advantages and disadvantages. Later I used this comparison to explain to my daughter that your view is determined by the way you look at things. She ran upstairs to get the picture of the famous illusion by Hill (1915). Does it depict a beautiful young girl or an old woman? Unravelling the Contested Nature of Carbon Capture and Storage Analyse van het debat over CO2 afvang en opslag (met een samenvatting in het Nederlands) Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Universiteit Utrecht op gezag van de rector magnificus, prof.dr. G.J. van der Zwaan, ingevolge het besluit van het college voor promoties in het openbaar te verdedigen op vrijdag 3 juni 2016 des middags te 12:45 uur door Sander van Egmond geboren op 22 juni 1973 te Utrecht Promotor: Prof.dr. M.P. Hekkert Copromotor: Dr. J.C.M. Farla Contents Contents 1. Introduction.......................................................................... 7 1.1. Technology and society ........................................................ 7 1.2. Perceptions of technology versus environment ........................ 8 1.3. Approaches to evaluate energy technologies .......................... 10 1.4. Introducing the CCS case .................................................... 16 1.5. Goal and outline of this thesis .............................................. 26 1.A. Annex: Background information in CCS chains ....................... 29 2. Mapping the CCS benefits and drawbacks ................................ 35 2.1. Introduction ...................................................................... 35 2.2. Argument map methodology ............................................... 36 2.3. Argument map results ........................................................ 38 2.4. Different components in the CCS chain ................................. 40 2.5. Analysis of backgrounds and applicability of the arguments. .... 40 2.6. Discussion and conclusion ................................................... 49 3. The views of the public on CCS ............................................... 51 3.1. Introduction ...................................................................... 51 3.2. Methods ........................................................................... 52 3.3. Results ............................................................................. 57 3.4. Conclusions and future directions ......................................... 63 3.A. Annex: detailed results of mixed logit and latent class models .. 65 4. The political debate on CCS ................................................... 67 4.1. Introduction ...................................................................... 67 4.2. Background on CCS and Dutch politics .................................. 69 4.3. Method ............................................................................. 70 4.4. The parliamentary discussion ............................................... 74 4.5. Climate ambitions and views on CCS of political parties ........... 77 4.6. Party policy, climate ambition and CCS opinion ...................... 83 4.7. Conclusion and discussion ................................................... 86 4.A. Annex: Abbreviations and names of Dutch political parties ....... 90 5 Unravelling the Contested Nature of Carbon Capture and Storage 5. Interaction between science and societal debate on CCS ............ 91 5.1. Introduction ...................................................................... 91 5.2. Background on the CCS research in the Netherlands ............... 93 5.3. The structure and content of the CATO-2 programme ............. 95 5.4. CATO as a knowledge integrating environment ..................... 101 5.5. Scientific impact of CATO .................................................. 103 5.6. Interaction of CATO with Dutch society ............................... 106 5.7. Conclusion and discussion ................................................. 109 6. Case: Failure of the Barendrecht CO2 storage project ............... 111 6.1. Introduction .................................................................... 111 6.2. Theoretical background ..................................................... 111 6.3. Methods ......................................................................... 114 6.4. Background of the Barendrecht project ............................... 115 6.5. Event analysis ................................................................. 117 6.6. Analysis of the political debate ........................................... 123 6.7. Conclusion and discussion ................................................. 132 6.A. Annex: Background Dutch national political system .............. 134 7. Conclusions and recommendations ........................................ 137 7.1. Conclusions from the chapters ........................................... 137 7.2. Perception of actors on CCS .............................................. 142 7.3. Future of CCS and recommendations .................................. 143 Samenvatting en conclusies ......................................................... 147 Contribution of PhD candidate to manuscript .................................. 153 References ................................................................................ 155 Dankwoord ................................................................................ 175 Curriculum Vitae ........................................................................ 177 Annex 1. Abbreviations and Units ................................................. 179 Annex 2. Dutch CO2 emissions ..................................................... 181 6 1.Introduction 1. Introduction 1.1. Technology and society Technology is an essential part of modern life. Technological development brought increased economic welfare, as production and availability of all kind of consumables grew enormously in the last century. The introduction of household appliances gave us more spare time, our life expectancy has increased considerably due to the development of new medical treatments and technologies, and nowadays we can easily travel to other continents and have live communication with our families and colleagues at the other side of the world. Thus, many will argue that technology has improved the quality of our day to day life. However, the development of new technologies also sparks concerns in society. For instance, in the beginning of the 19th-century English textile workers protested against the implementation of labour extensive technologies. These so called Luddites feared that industrial revolution would replace their jobs (Schot, 2003). Similarly the advantages and drawbacks of (modern) robots are currently under debate in society (Rathenau Instituut, 2012). The development of nuclear weapons resulted in mass demonstrations in the second part of the 20th century. In the sixties and seventies of the 20th century concerns about the depletion of the earth’s resources and harmful side effects to the environment due to industrialisation started. The Club of Rome’s report ‘Limits to Growth’ warned that a continued growth of the economy and population would lead to an overshoot and collapse of the global system (Meadows et al., 1972). These concerns are related to many different technologies, maybe even to technology development in general, although concerns about a specific technology are possible as well. Examples of the latter are the risk related to nuclear power plants or the visual impact of wind turbines. Many studies have analysed underlying motives that lead to acceptance or rejection of a new technology. This thesis focuses on the societal evaluation of a specific technology, Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), which is a technology that captures CO2 from the exhaust gases of power plants or large industrial facilities. CO2 is subsequently transported to a storage location and then stored in the deep subsurface in depleted gas fields or aquifers. Many scientists and policy makers consider CCS necessary to mitigate climate change (e.g. IEA, 2013b). However, the actual deployment is slow, and the 7 Unravelling the Contested Nature of Carbon Capture and Storage technology is contested by society. To increase the speed of implementation more incentives are required. By understanding the discourse on CCS, one can get an idea whether society is willing to provide these incentives. 1.2. Perceptions of technology versus environment Before introducing the CCS technology I first give a short introduction on different