Report: SEL Assessment for CCS in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and Germany
The report describes the outcomes of the societal embeddedness level (SEL) assessments of CCS in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and Germany. The SEL assessments give insight in the main societal challenges for further CCS developments at national level in these four countries. The report also provides recommendations for improving the societal embeddedness of CCS technology in each country. Furthermore, the report shares main learnings with applying the novel SEL methodology in the CCS domain.
Based on a contextualization of CCS within each country, the main societal challenges towards CCS deployments were researched, using the novel SEL methodology as described in the DigiMon deliverable D3.1 “Guideline Societal Embeddedness Assessment”. For each country, a different societal embeddedness level was assessed for CCS development, with Norway being at SEL level 3 – Demonstration, with considerable progress towards SEL level 4 - Deployment, followed by the Netherlands with SEL level 2 – Development, with several initiatives towards offshore demonstration projects and then by Greece and Germany with SEL level 1 - Exploration. Recommendations towards further improving CCS development were proposed per country.
The overarching analysis of the outcomes of the four national SEL assessments for CCS also provide insights in the current role of monitoring with regards to societal embeddedness of CCS projects. The national SEL assessments for CCS show that monitoring currently is a regulatory requirement as part of permitting procedures. Furthermore, the national assessments give an indication that monitoring alleviates community concerns on safety, although no in-depth scientific studies have been carried out in this direction. In order to effectively contribute to trust-building among stakeholders concerned (governmental representatives, concerned public but also industry actors and NGOs) and outreach activities, a CCS monitoring system should be low cost, efficient and easy to maintain over a long time, measure and predict leakages and plume movement, transparent allowing real-time access to monitoring data, provide reliable access to experts for questions on the data continuously, externally supervised by impartial institutions and connected to a safety concept that states what happens when the data divert from normality.
The insights from the four national case studies and the corresponding overarching analysis are currently used to set up the local case studies on how the Digimon monitoring system could contribute to improving the societal embeddedness of CCS developments.
The report was prepared by D. Mendrinos and O. Polyzou (CRES), A. Nordø (NORCE), M. Sprenkeling, R. Peuchen, T. Geerdink and H. Puts (TNO) and D. Otto (UFZ), with valuable contributions of Poppy Kalesi (Environmental Defence Fund) and Marie Bueie Holstad and Kirsti Midttømme (both NORCE) in their role as quality control reviewers.
The overarching analysis of the outcomes of the four national SEL assessments for CCS also provide insights in the current role of monitoring with regards to societal embeddedness of CCS projects. The national SEL assessments for CCS show that monitoring currently is a regulatory requirement as part of permitting procedures. Furthermore, the national assessments give an indication that monitoring alleviates community concerns on safety, although no in-depth scientific studies have been carried out in this direction. In order to effectively contribute to trust-building among stakeholders concerned (governmental representatives, concerned public but also industry actors and NGOs) and outreach activities, a CCS monitoring system should be low cost, efficient and easy to maintain over a long time, measure and predict leakages and plume movement, transparent allowing real-time access to monitoring data, provide reliable access to experts for questions on the data continuously, externally supervised by impartial institutions and connected to a safety concept that states what happens when the data divert from normality.
The insights from the four national case studies and the corresponding overarching analysis are currently used to set up the local case studies on how the Digimon monitoring system could contribute to improving the societal embeddedness of CCS developments.
The report was prepared by D. Mendrinos and O. Polyzou (CRES), A. Nordø (NORCE), M. Sprenkeling, R. Peuchen, T. Geerdink and H. Puts (TNO) and D. Otto (UFZ), with valuable contributions of Poppy Kalesi (Environmental Defence Fund) and Marie Bueie Holstad and Kirsti Midttømme (both NORCE) in their role as quality control reviewers.