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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Energy Res.
Sec. Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenrg.2024.1424865

Perception of Carbon Capture and Utilization -a framing analysis of German-speaking media

Provisionally accepted
Kristina Fürst Kristina Fürst 1*Till Strunge Till Strunge 1,2,3*
  • 1 Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, Potsdam, Brandenburg, Germany
  • 2 Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
  • 3 Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Carbon dioxide capture and utilization (CCU) technologies are one building block in Germany's industrial decarbonization strategy. With CCU technologies, carbon dioxide emissions are captured from an industrial point source or the ambient air (direct air capture, DAC) and either used directly as an industrial feedstock or transformed and used as a carbon resource in industry. Despite the potential benefits of CCU in decreasing industrial dependency on fossil fuels and decreasing global CO2 emissions, robust empirical evidence of the general public opinion and societal acceptance of carbon capture and utilization technologies is lacking. Here, we studied the German-speaking media discourse as a proxy for the public discussion of carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies. We show that CCU technologies are overall framed more positively than negatively. Responsible for the optimistic framing are the two dominant media frames: "climate protection-frame" and "benefit-frame", which are mainly used by scientists and policy actors or representatives from the industry sector respectively.

    Keywords: CCU, Carbon capture and utilization, Media analysis, framing, Entman

    Received: 28 Apr 2024; Accepted: 10 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Fürst and Strunge. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Kristina Fürst, Research Institute for Sustainability – Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, Potsdam, D-14467, Brandenburg, Germany
    Till Strunge, Technical University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.