This paper aims to explain to the failure of six carbon capture and storage (CCS) demonstration projects installed at coal power plants within the European Union. The projects were funded across six different members with varying suitability to coal-based CCS, which raises the question of whether common domestic factors can be identified that explain the failure of all projects. The perspective of Europeanisation is adopted to examine this question.

While coal is decreasingly relevant in the European context, it continues to be used as a fuel source in the Global South. Analysing this episode could thus help better support implementation of CCS elsewhere. Moreover, coal-based CCS is but just one example of a negative emissions technology. Explaining the failure of coal-based CCS could thus help to prevent the failure of upcoming negative technologies such as direct air capture.

The paper is available for download.