Canadians and Europeans are opposed to accepting carbon dioxide for underground storage if it originates outside their own country, according to a new study co-conducted by the University of Alberta.
Their opinions do not change if financial compensation is offered, says Sven Anders, a resource economist in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences who collaborated with researchers from the U.K. and Germany.
"People don't like to clean up the dirt of others," Anders says. "It's easy to understand."
The researchers surveyed 1,000 people in each of Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway and the U.K. The participants were asked how acceptable they found different scenarios that described the possible deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in their country.
Each scenario contained a different variation of the following: who is implementing CCS (government, industry or a combination); the proximity of the storage to the participant's residence; how much mitigation the CCS provides; whether the CO2 emissions are domestic only or also from imported sources; the level of public consultation offered; the level of information provided on the earthquake risks of CCS; and different forms of compensating affected communities and individuals.
The results show that the public in each of the countries expressed a slightly higher level of acceptance for a national implementation of CCS if the carbon emissions were only coming from the respondents' own country.
In contrast, CCS scenarios that included CO2 imported across borders were mainly rated unacceptable. There was a noteworthy rise in "completely unacceptable" responses when participants considered cross-border imports.
Mandating public consultation before the approval of CO2 storage, strict risk-monitoring regimes and compensation for individuals in affected communities raises public acceptance of carbon storage. However, that is unlikely to overcome the opposition to CO2 imports for CCS, Anders says.
