What will CCS demonstrations demonstrate?

Great hopes and urgency now attach to carbon capture and storage (CCS). The technology faces a phase of large-scale demonstrations, and scrutiny of these will be intense. It is crucial for all concerned to have a good understanding of what we can and should not expect, from such demonstrations. This paper sets out an agenda of research for this task. It draws together insights from the examination of technology demonstrations in the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies into the complex relations between demonstration, other elements of the system of innovation, and the wider context; the wide range of forms demonstrations take, the variety of conditions in which they are undertaken, and the many choices and assumptions entailed in setting them up; how they are organised and conducted; how the results are interpreted and their significancenegotiated; the multiple functions demonstrations can perform; and how they come to be seen as successful or not. It then considers the peculiar features of CCS technology and the context of its development and deployment. The paper arrives at a set of questions which must be answered through empirical investigation if we are to derive the maximum benefit from CCS demonstrations: how they should be organised and conducted and their results treated, what role demonstrations can play in the evaluation and development of CCS technology, and how we should set up the learning processes needed for its development and management.