Can I set svelte style css attribute values using variables passed in to a component

No. Component styles are shared between all instances of a component, either because they’re statically extracted to a .css file, or because they’re injected into a single <style> element that all components reference. If it were possible to put variables directly inside the component’s <style>, it would mean that Svelte would need to create encapsulated styles per-instance, which would be detrimental to performance and would consume a lot more memory.

There are two ways to approach this. The first is to use inline styles for anything that can change per-instance:

<script>
export let image_url;
</script>

<style>
.image{
    position:relative;
    opacity: 0.70;
    background-position:bottom;
    background-size: cover;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-attachment: fixed;
    /* background-image: url({image_url}); */
    min-height: 100%;
}
</style>

<!-- <div class="image"> -->
<div class="image" style="background-image: url({image_url});">
  <p>some text</p>
</div>

The second, particularly if you need to use values in multiple places, is to use CSS variables:

<script>
export let image_url;
</script>

<style>
.image{
    position:relative;
    opacity: 0.70;
    background-position:bottom;
    background-size: cover;
    background-repeat: no-repeat;
    background-attachment: fixed;
    /* background-image: url({image_url}); */
    background-image: var(--image);
    min-height: 100%;
}
</style>

<!-- <div class="image"> -->
<div class="image" style="--image: url({image_url});">
  <p>some text</p>
</div>