Engaging the community with a “Green Town” concept

Abstract

This paper describes a novel CO2 mitigation concept named “Green Town”. “Green Town” is a fully integrated carbon capture and storage (CCS) system applied at a town or city scale. It utilises air capture techniques to capture CO2 directly from atmosphere, as opposed to other CCS systems where CO2 is typically captured in flue gas streams pre- or post-combustion, then the captured CO2 is transported by pipeline and sequestered in offshore deep geological formations. The entire system is meant to be built within a community and in this way to inspire and interest the public and the younger generation regarding CCS technology. With enhanced public understanding of CO2 mitigation via CCS techniques it is therefore possible to engage the public in the early stage of CCS implementation. Technical details of the “Green Town” concept are given.
To evaluate public acceptance of the “Green Town” concept, questionnaire surveys were designed and carried in Southampton, UK and Hamburg, Germany in August 2011. Total of 158 and 366 effective completed questionnaires were collected from these two cities respectively. Results from both surveys are presented.
It is shown that generally there was a direct correlation between positive perception of CCS and positive perception of the “Green Town” idea. There was a stronger preference for the “Green Town” concept than for conventional CCS. This provides evidence that the idea of engaging the public through the “Green Town” concept could play an important role in laying a strong foundation for public interest in CCS projects. To explore the diversity of opinions on the “Green Town” idea and CCS between the two surveyed cities, a comparison of results from Southampton and Hamburg is also presented.
The proposed “Green Town” concept of air capture in the community was shown to be a viably possible route for public engagement in this or other CCS projects.

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ORCID for P.A. Wilson: orcid.org/0000-0002-6939-682X

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