Employing CCS Technologies in the Caribbean: A Case Study for Trinidad and Tobago

Public acceptance is one of the most critical factors affecting carbon dioxide capture and geological sequestration (CCS). Of the several reasons for public skepticism towards adoption of this technology, safety and reliability are leading concerns. Since the public's environment and standard of living can be directly affected through the implementation of carbon capture and geological storage, it is imperative that they feel confident in the safety and reliability of the technology. In addition, consumers may be expected to pay higher prices for electricity in order to facilitate the technology. Thus they will expect assurance that their investments are necessary and effective. Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) is one of the largest producers of fossil fuels in the Caribbean. T&T also emits approximately 38 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (Mt/CO2) per year. This amount is expected to increase due to the growth of the manufacturing sector within the country and is projected to reach as much as 50 Mt/CO2 by 2012. The country's relatively small population places T&T among the world leaders with respect to CO2 emissions per capita. In addition, the small island states such as T&T and the wider Caribbean are the most vulnerable to coastal erosion, rising sea levels and flooding due to intensive rainfall, all of which are forecast to be more severe if the climate grows warmer. The communication of these factors to the public of T&T is an essential part of gaining their acceptance of CCS technologies as a controlling factor for carbon dioxide emissions. The public's acceptance in T&T towards adopting geological CCS as a means of carbon dioxide emission mitigation is measured and reported in this paper. Such an exercise was conducted through the application of a random survey. However, since it was anticipated that a majority of the population would not have any previous knowledge of the technology, the survey contained an integral preamble briefly outlining this technology to the prospective sample. In addition, the survey was constructed such that the sample was separated into two main sections, those with prior knowledge of the technology and those without such previous knowledge. The results of these two factions are reported separately to ascertain whether prior knowledge of the technology greatly affected the eventual acceptance. The survey was constructed to highlight the technical, legal and economic issues. The results seem to indicate that though a greater number of participants felt that CCS was safe rather than dangerous (28% versus 25%) and the associated risks were known to science, a significant majority of them (90%) were still very concerned about leakage and environmental issues. It should be noted too that a very large proportion of the population (in some cases 33%) remained uncertain about critical safety issues and this large portion was greater than the respondents on either the safe or dangerous side. This result seems to indicate that a greater public awareness and informative campaign is needed in T&T before the population can be comfortable and confident on their position with respect to the technology. On the issue of funding a CCS project if needed most participants felt that this was the responsibility of either the government or related industries. However if they were made to pay via legislative force, most of them will comply (74%) but of these only a minority (18.5) was willing to comply with a 13% or greater hike in their monthly electricity bill. (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.