Abstract
As carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) gains policy traction and pilot project funding, CCS usually gets the limelight, whereas CCU is often overlooked. CCU, if feasible, has two potential advantages: it obviates risks and monitoring needs associated with long-term storage, and it creates economic value to offset carbon capture costs. Yet scholarly accounts of CCU feasibility are rare. To address this lacuna, the manuscript channels in-depth knowledge of a CCU start-up in Norway into a critical analysis of the barriers and opportunities for emerging sectoral enterprises. The trajectory of Bergen Carbon Solutions (BCS) during 2016–2019 is mapped by a human geographer along with its founder. We organize enquiry along three axes: (i) access to “soft” capital (this includes knowledge and human resources), (ii) access to “hard” capital (this includes financing and technical approvals), and (iii) navigation of rapid expansion. Under (i), we present and analyze the contextual conditions and contingencies for the emergence of the core value proposition. Under (ii), we detail the networks, processes, and institutional structures through which the enterprise gained its financial basis and was able to test its CCU process. Under (iii), we complement attention to organizational management by highlighting key informal and human factors. We foreground how the emergence of CCU is a relational process that depends on how actors in a changing field interact and reconfigure themselves. This informs regulatory policies and economic instruments about overlooked contextual issues related to the modulation and feasibility of scalable, profitable CCU.
Highlights
As carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) gains policy traction and pilot project funding, CCS usually gets the limelight, whereas CCU is often overlooked
Scholarly accounts of CCU feasibility are rare at this emergent moment (Jones et al, 2017); a case study of getting CCU off the ground is timely and relevant
CCUS efforts have largely been promoted by large-scale actors such as fossil fuel companies with an interest in advancing this segment; we know relatively little about bottom-up efforts in this growing sector
Summary
As carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) gains policy traction and pilot project funding, CCS usually gets the limelight, whereas CCU is often overlooked. We organize enquiry along three axes: 1) access to “soft” capital (this includes knowledge and human resources), 2) access to “hard” capital (this includes financing and technical approval), and 3) navigation of rapid expansion These emerged through an abductive approach, where we examined our case to identify understudied factors in extant scholarship on CCU and developed a strategy to explain them as best possible. By tracing the emergence of our case in terms of these three factors below, we highlight how human geography perspectives can guide the development of regulatory and economic mechanisms These go beyond financial incentives and penalties and concern the coordinated enablement of a stable innovation ecosystem to advance an emerging technological niche. This section reports on and analyzes the case of Bergen Carbon Solutions (BCS) along these axes
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