Does it make a difference to the public where CO2 comes from and where it is stored? An experimental approach to enhance understanding of CCS perceptions

摘要

Among the factors that decelerate progress of CCS demonstration and deployment is the lack of public acceptance of local projects in Germany as well as in other countries. The study presented here aims to take the issue of public CCS perceptions further by empirically investigating the relevance of different specifications of the three main steps of the CCS chain, i.e. capture, transport and storage. An experimental approach is chosen and applied in an online survey with a representative sample from Germany with 1830 participants. With regard to possible CO2 sources we varied whether the CO2 of a specific setting is captured i) as part of an energy-intensive industry process (e.g. production of steel or cement), ii) from a power plant running on biomass, or iii) a coal-fired power plant. For transport, half of the settings described made reference to transport of CO2 via pipelines, the other half did not provide information about transport. With regard to storage the setting descriptions i) either explained that CO2 can be stored in saline aquifers, ii) can be used to enhance gas production from an emptying natural gas field or iii) can be stored in a depleted natural gas field. We find that overall the average of the ratings for perception of the settings fall into the neutral part of the answering scale. If the source of CO2 is a coal-fired power plant the setting is perceived less positively than if it includes biomass or industry. A significant interaction effect between transport and storage specifications is observed. This points out that storage in saline aquifers is perceived more negatively than a combination with enhanced gas recovery while storage in a depleted natural gas field is rated less positively if a pipeline is mentioned and more positively if no transport option is mentioned.