Socio-technical drivers, opportunities and challenges for large-scale CCUS

There is broad consensus that CCS is necessary to achieve the 2-degree target. In recent years, the focus on carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Norway has gained momentum, particularly as a result of the Norwegian government's decision to allocate significant financial support to the Langskip project. There is also increasing attention on the use of captured carbon (carbon capture and utilization, CCU). In the CaptureX project, we seek to understand the drivers, barriers, and opportunities for developing and scaling up CCUS as a climate solution, both in Norway and in other Northern European countries. The CaptureX project is carried out by a leading group of social science energy researchers in Norway (SINTEF Digital, NTNU KULT, UiO TIK) and Sweden (Chalmers), involving CCS experts from SINTEF Energy. The project employs two post.docs. Collaborations have also been established for data collection and analysis with researchers from the United Kingdom (Newcastle University, Sheffield Hallam University). Two PhD candidates funded by research centers INTRANSIT and FME NTRANS are also contributing to the project. Furthermore, CaptureX collaborates with FME NTRANS on a use case related to 'CCS, CDR, and negative emissions'. The project has an advisory board with members from industry, research and development, and various organizations, contributing to ensuring relevance. The project is based on the interdisciplinary research field of sustainable transitions and adopts various socio-technical perspectives to understand innovation and transition processes in CCUS. The project analyses innovation throughout the CCUS value chains and examines how strategies and business models of key industry actors and regional industrial transformation processes shape the development of CCUS and vice versa. CaptureX further emphasizes the importance of legitimation processes (including acceptance) and policy development for the development and diffusion of CCUS. As of October 2024, the project is mostly on track, despite some challenges related to the recruitment of postdoctoral positions. Over 100 interviews have been conducted with various stakeholders (technology providers, technology users, authorities, administration, research and development, etc.), along with document studies and a Q-methodology-based survey that involved altogether 50 participants in Norway and Sweden. The majority of interviews have been conducted in Norway, the UK and the Netherlands. Data collection for four regional cases studies in Norway, two in the UK, and one in the Netherlands is mainly completed. Document studies have also been a key method in the project. Tentative results suggest that CCUS technology, overall, is progressing positively, but barriers related to costs, regulatory conditions, and market development are significant. Business models for CCUS are associated with substantial uncertainty. Furthermore, our preliminary findings indicate that the lack of access to transport and storage, as well as circular economy-based business models, highlight the relevance of CCU in Norway, which, however, falls outside the scope of CLIMIT. The fact that CCUS has increasingly become a climate solution for several sectors is positive, but also presents challenges, for example in the case of fragmented knowledge development. Our findings further indicate that CCUS as a climate solution must be understood in context, both politically, sectorally and geographically, as well as regarding how CCUS interacts with other climate solutions such as energy efficiency, electrification, hydrogen and bio-carbon. Keywords for main themes we are working on during the second half of 2024 are value chains, regional conditions, legitimacy, and policy. The project aims to contribute to the international research frontier on sustainable transitions and disseminate results to relevant stakeholders and audiences within and outside of academia. As of October 2024, three articles from the project have been published in peer-reviewed international journals. Seven more have been submitted. These span a range of themes, including DACCS, global innovation system dynamics for CCS, CCS for the waste-to-energy sector in Norway, and the interaction between policy and technology strategies among emitters. Several more articles are in development. Some of these are the result of collaborations across projects and research centers, such as FME NTRANS, INTRANSIT, and Hydrogen Pathways. The project has also acted as a springboard for project members to participate in and/or establish new projects. These include FME gigaCCS, an EUPilotCities project with Statkraft Varme and Trondheim municipality, a new project for innovation policy for industrial climate change in Sweden, an RCN-funded project for process industry decarbonization in Nordland county, and a project supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation with a focus on CCUS value chains.

There is a general consensus that carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology will be necessary in order to keep global warming under 2°C. Recently, CCS has gained momentum, with the Norwegian Government allocating NOK 16.8 billion to the Longship project, which seeks to establish a full-scale value-chain for CCS. In CaptureX we aim to understand the drivers and barriers for successfully establishing this value chain. Departing from the multidisciplinary sustainability transitions research field, CaptureX builds on a socio-technical perspective to analyse the innovation dynamics related to the establishment of CCS. The project investigates innovation processes across the value chain of CCS and carbon capture and utilization (CCU) and elaborates on how the technology strategies and business models of key industrial actors and regional industrial transformation processes may affect CCUS innovation, and vice versa. CaptureX also investigates the role of legitimation processes and policies in supporting, (or potentially hampering) the development and diffusion of CCUS technologies, and finally explores the role of CCUS as a mitigation strategy in future energy systems and Norwegian energy exports. CaptureX brings together a leading group of social science researchers on energy and sustainability transitions in Norway (SINTEF Digital, NTNU KULT, UiO TIK) and Sweden (Chalmers University of Technology), and also involves CCS technology experts from SINTEF Energi. An advisory board with members from industry, R&D, policy consultancy and NGOs will secure relevance of the research to practitioners and policy-makers. The project aims to contribute to the international forefront of sustainability transitions research, and also to disseminate findings and insights to relevant non-academic communities.