Social Science Insights for the BioCCS Industry

BioCCS is a technology gaining support as a possible emissions reduction policy option to address climate change. The process entails the capture, transport and storage of carbon dioxide produced during energy production from biomass. Globally, the most optimistic energy efficiency scenarios cannot avoid an average temperature increase of +2 °C without bioCCS. Although very much at the commencement stage, bioCCS demonstration projects can provide opportunity to garner knowledge, achieve consensus and build support around the technology’s properties. Yet many challenges face the bioCCS industry, including no guarantee biomass will always be from sustainable sources or potentially result in carbon stock losses. The operating environment also has no or limited policies, regulations and legal frameworks, and risk and safety concerns abound. Some state the key problem for bioCCS is cultural, lacking in a ‘community of support’, awareness and credibility amongst its own key stakeholders and the wider public. Therefore, the industry can benefit from the growing social science literature, drawing upon other energy and resource based industries with regard to social choice for future energy options. To this end, the following scoping review was conducted in order to ascertain gaps in existing public perception and acceptance research focusing on bioCCS