 How a "Low Carbon" Innovation Can Fail--Tales from a "Lost Decade" for Carbon Capture, Transport, and Sequestration (CCTS)Christian von Hirschhausen, Johannes Herold and Pao-Yu Oei Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy, 2012, vol. Volume 1, issue Number 2 Abstract: This paper analyzes the discrepancy between the high hopes placed in Carbon Capture, Transport, and Storage (CCTS) and the meager results that have been observed in reality, and advances several explanations for what we call a "lost decade" for CCTS. We trace the origins of the high hopes placed in this technology by industry and policymakers alike, and show how the large number of demonstration projects required for a breakthrough did not follow. We then identify possible explanations for the "lost decade", such as incumbent resistance to structural change, wrong technology choices, over-optimistic cost estimates, a premature focus on energy projects instead of industry, and the underestimation of transport and storage issues. We conclude it is likely that we have to live for quite some time with a cognitive dissonance in which top-down models continue to place hope in the CCTS-technology by reducing its expected fixed and variable costs, and bottom-up researchers continue to count failed pilot projects. JEL-codes: F0 (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aen:eeepjl:1_2_a08 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from Access Statistics for this article More articles in Economics of Energy & Environmental Policy from International Association for Energy Economics Contact information at EDIRC. |
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