Between Old and New
Retrofitting Infrastructures to Enable Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage in Belgium, Denmark and Norway
Confronted with the consequences of climate change, industrialized countries are compelled to consider strategies to replace, repair, or transform highly-emitting incumbent infrastructures. My research addresses how those transformation dynamics materialize through carbon capture, use, and storage (CCUS) projects, which promise an innovative solution to adjust – not replace – those hard-to-abate industries. It does so by mobilizing the notion of retrofit, i.e. a particular form of repair seeking to provide infrastructures with both a material and symbolic update. The main objectives of this research project are (1) to identify the characteristics, promises, and challenges involved in CCUS strategies to transform heavy industries (2) through the in-depth analysis and qualitative comparison of retrofitting projects in three countries aiming to promote CCUS developments and create a cross-border carbon value chain (Belgium, Denmark, and Norway).
Thesis by Sacha Frenay under the supervision of Céline Parotte
