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

Research Project, 2021 – 2024

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.