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Short abstract:

Social acceptance of renewable energy is a critical issue regarding energy transition. This talk aims to document how comparative analysis of narratives about a technological artificat can provide relevant insights to understand social acceptance using the example of carbon capture and storage.

Long abstract:

The late 1980s saw a surge in attention towards social acceptance within the renewable energy and low-carbon technology sectors, particularly highlighted by opposition faced by wind power farm developers despite positive public opinion towards wind power. Much research in this field focuses on factors enhancing acceptance before the actual diffusion of innovations, often repeating similar investigations for each innovation and not challenging the concept's ingrained Technology/Society dichotomy.

This talk draws from research material on social acceptance of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) to document how STS and policy sciences approaches could provide relevant insights to improve the understanding of this issue. Indeed, various research on technological expectations (Borup et al., 2006) or narratives developed by innovation developers (Deuten & Rip, 2000) to launch their products provides relevant insights on issues considered by a technology. Then, a technological project is no longer the sum of technological artifacts but a defined vision of a society. From the perspective of acceptance, the challenge is no longer considering factors influencing the perception of a defined technological system but instead considering the consistency and competition between technology developers and alternative stories promoted by representatives from local territories, economic sectors, and national government. This talk aims to document this "comparative narrative analysis" approach, enabling researchers to understand the motive of some stakeholders' opposition and reinterpret the developer's narratives to integrate the technological artifact in an alternative story by other types of stakeholders. Then these insights are critical when considering the social acceptance issue.