Geologic Storage of carbon dioxide : risk analyses and implications for public acceptance

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology has the potential to enable large reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions, but one of the unanswered questions about CCS is whether it will be accepted by the public. In the past, construction of large facilities such as nuclear power plants has been prevented or delayed by public opposition, and CCS proponents would like to know whether it will provoke similar public opposition. Since the Geologic Storage (GS) component of the CCS architecture has not been widely deployed, this thesis explores the characteristics of GS and how they might affect public perception and acceptance of the larger CCS architecture. To provide insight regarding public acceptance of CCS, this thesis addresses two questions; first asking how GS is likely to be perceived by the public and what can be done to improve that perception, and second asking whether financial compensation can be used to improve public acceptance of energy facilities. To address the first question about the public perception of GS, this thesis begins with a discussion of risk concepts and how it is used differently by experts, who use a realist perspective, and the general public, who use a social constructivist perspective.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Technology and Policy Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Singleton, Gregory R. (Gregory Randall)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Howard Herzog and Stephen Ansolabehere.

• Technology and Policy Program.
• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/40378

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/40378