US sets out carbon capture rules

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is introducing new rules to formalise the storing of carbon dioxide underground, a move that should help usher in a generation of commercial scale carbon sequestration projects.

The Agency is updating its regulations on carbon sequestration to include a new class of well specifically designed for underground storage of carbon dioxode. Other classes of well already defined allow for the injection of carbon dioxide for oil recovery, and experimental projects.

The EPA's rules, now open for a 120-day consultation period, set out regulations for the construction, monitoring and decommissioning of wells specifically designed for carbon sequestration.

The move is the latest in a series of high-profile moves by the US government designed to support technologies capable of minimising emissions from fossil fuels. The Bush administration has repeatedly advocated the use of technologies that will allow the US to curb emissions while continuing to exploit its vast coal reserves and last month the DoE pledged $1.3bn in funding for clean coal programmes, many of which will rely heavily on carbon sequestration for their operations.

Others are turning to the oceans for storage. A team of scientists from the University of Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has proposed storing carbon in an undersea basalt plate off the western coast of the US, extending from Washington state to California.

The basalt in the plate would gradually convert liquified CO2 to limestome, said Taro Takahashi, co-author of a paper on the subject published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The paper claims that the plate is potentially large enough to store a century's worth of US carbon emissions.

"It's large, secure, and away from civilisation. The disadvantage is that it's also somewhat distant from industrial civilisation," said lead author David Goldberg, who has examined the costs of transporting CO2 by pipeline from industrial centres on the west coast. "We're looking at this as a moderate to long-term solution on where you put the CO2."

The nearest offshore plate on the eastern seaboard – where according to the Vulcan project more of the nation’s 1.7GT of annual industrial CO2 emissions take place – is in the mid-Atlantic, making it commercially unviable as a storage site.