Societal acceptance of carbon capture and storage technologies

For the actual implementation of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies, societal support is a crucial precondition. This paper describes an extensive study on the acceptance of CCS by stakeholders in the Netherlands and explores one of the determining factors in the acceptance of CCS by the lay public, i.e. the way the Dutch press perceives and portrays CCS. The stakeholder analysis shows that there is a positive attitude towards CCS by industry, government, and environmental NGOs, provided that the conditions they pose on the deployment of CCS are met. The content analysis of Dutch news articles conveys that the media portrayal of CCS is—to a certain extent—a balanced reflection of the way CCS is perceived by the stakeholders. Both analyses show that the concerns about CCS have not overshadowed the main promise that CCS is part of the solution to climate change. However, the current negative aspects of CCS as raised by different stakeholders and the media will remain if no action is taken. Therefore, the conditions posed on the use of CCS, as well as the actions required to meet these conditions, could function as a proxy for the ‘societal voice’, articulating the most important issues concerning the future acceptance of CCS technology.