L'évaluation des contextes socio-politiques
This publication, prepared by Pauline Ascon, follows our previous post on the “Poles of Acceptability” and provides a summary of Chapter 2 of Florian Auclair’s thesis, highlighting key findings on how the dynamics underlying the Poles of Acceptability can be investigated in real-world contexts.
Chapter 2 of Florian Auclair's Thesis: L'évaluation des contextes socio-politiques
To understand and evaluate the social acceptability of BECCS, Florian’s thesis moved beyond a simple technical analysis. Indeed, he decided to adopt a political science framework to explain how national energy transitions and local project integration are shaped by the history and socio-political context of a territory.
The Analytical Framework: Causal Context vs. Consequential Acceptability
Florian started from the observation that the history of a territory (the context) determines the acceptability of a project in the present. To capture this, the research utilizes two distinct grids:
- The Contextual Grid (Causal): Analyzes why and how a territory is ready for a technological innovation.
- The Acceptability Grid (Consequential): Analyzes the resulting social reactions and positions.
Figure : Analysis method with a dual framework
To study the two analytical framework it is used a six dimensional model :
- Materiality: Infrastructure, natural resources, and the physical chain
- Actor Configurations: Profiles of industry, academia, administration, and NGOs.
- Political Style: The country's unique way of managing transitions (e.g., consensual vs. top-down).
- Collective Representations: Underlying "imaginaries" of what energy production should look like.
- Internalization of Exogenous Constraints: How global climate pressures and international discourses are integrated into national strategies.
- Economic Support Policies: Specific forms of subsidies and funding dedicated to BECCS.
Case Selection: Comparing the "National Locomotives"
To investigate these dynamics, the scope is narrowed from a global perspective to two European "national locomotives" that will serve as case studies where it is possible to apply the contextual and acceptability grids to caracterize BECCS deployment in different, yet comparable settings.
The United States was excluded from this comparison because its BECCS development is largely linked to Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR), a practice that prioritizes oil extraction over climate goals.
The focus therefore shifts to Northern Europe, where the proximity of North Sea offshore storage and existing industrial expertise make BECCS a credible climate solution. Within this region, the author selects the Drax Power Station in the UK and the KVV8 Cogeneration Plant in Sweden for a detailed comparison of their similarities and divergences.
Although both sites share a Northern European context, they exhibit very different “path dependencies,” with the UK operates as a centralized monarchy with a legacy of heavy industry and coal, whereas Sweden is a multiparty democracy with strong forestry and hydroelectric traditions. Comparing these two distinct socio-political environments allows the research to highlight how local history and national political styles shape the “acceptability” of the same technology in different ways.
Methodology: A Multi-Source Investigation
To apply his analytical grids, it was needed a robust set of data for each of its case studies. Therefore, his research draws on a robust qualitative dataset to ensure a representative view of the BECCS landscape, with Florian collecting 300 scientific references and approximately 100 press articles from sources such as The Guardian, Europresse, and specialized engineering journals like Modern Power System.
This media and press analysis enabled a clear understanding of the context surrounding BECCS technology in both countries and helped identify the key actors involved in its deployment (industrial, administrative, academic and associations)
Florian then conducted semi-structured interviews, carrying out 31 interviews in England and 12 in Sweden. Importantly, the term “social acceptability” was never used directly to avoid influencing participants. Instead, actors were asked about supports and obstacles to deployment, the most fragile parts of the value chain, and the current evolution of the deployment process.
The analysis was further strengthened by a seven-month field study in England, providing deep immersion into the socio-political environment of the UK’s energy transition. While the same fieldwork was not possible in Sweden, Florian confirms that this did not negatively affect the comparative analysis between the two cases.
Future publications will show how Florian applied these methodology to investigate the social acceptability of BECCS in England and Sweden.
To learn more about this research, please follow this link.
Bibliography
Aykut, Stefan C., et Aurélien Evrard. « Une transition pour que rien ne change ? Changement institutionnel et dépendance au sentier dans les « transitions énergétiques » en Allemagne et en France »: Revue internationale de politique comparée Vol. 24, no 1 (4 avril 2018): 17-49. https://doi.org/10.3917/ripc.241.0017.
Waller, Laurie, Tim Rayner, Jason Chilvers, Clair Amanda Gough, Irene Lorenzoni, Andrew Jordan, et Naomi Vaughan. « Contested Framings of Greenhouse Gas Removal and Its Feasibility: Social and Political Dimensions». WIREs Climate Change 11, no 4 (juillet 2020). https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.649
