ISTerre seminar

A tree hiding the forest: the instrumentalization of the lack of social acceptability in the French subsurface industries developing decarbonation policies. Un arbre qui cache la forêt : l'instrumentalisation du manque d'acceptabilité sociale dans les industries de subsurface françaises développant des politiques de décarbonation.

Thursday 24 April 2025 - 15h30
Xavier ARNAULD de SARTRE - Université de Pau
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Subsurface uses (energy or waste storage, raw material extraction, heat uses) have recently been recognised as very promising ways to tackle energy transition issues. Nevertheless, many policy makers and earth scien- tists consider that, beyond technology, social acceptance issues are the main obstacle to the use of subsurface‘s technologies. Our objective in this paper is to challenge – and criticize – this point of view: we aim to demonstrate that even if the lack of social acceptance can explain the non-deployment of some subsurface technologies, generalizing this explanation for all the industrial failures hides – sometimes intentionally – the different reasons explaining why the decarbonation promises from the subsurface industries failed to materialize in France. Analyzing the French subsurface industries since the early 2000’s, this article shows how a coalition of subsurface industries and policymakers build the narrative of a lack of social acceptability to reform the mining regulation in order to better anticipate and control social conflicts over subsurface projects. Through the study of four subsurface industries over a period of 15 years (geological carbon storage, geothermal power production, shale gas development and mining prospects), we demonstrate first why the narratives of the lack of social acceptance fail to describe the various conflicts and projects failures, and then how these narratives have been used to push for a reform of the mining regulation leading to a new policy strengthening environmental assessment and integration social acceptance stakes.

Organizing team : Minéralogie

Amphithéâtre Killian, Maison des Géosciences, 38400 Saint Martin d'Hères