The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed rules for future carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects in the U.S. that would attempt to bury greenhouse gas deep in the earth.
The rules attempt to create a consistent framework for the injection of carbon dioxide underground and protection of underground drinking water resources.
The proposal details requirements to ensure wells are appropriately located, constructed, tested, monitored and closed. It also creates a new class of injection wells under the authority of the Safe Drinking Water Act’s Underground Injection Control (UIC) program.
Many government officials and corporations aroun the world support CCS as a potential solution to growing levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. However, many environmentalists and researchers think the untested process offers false hope, because the timeline for widespread adoption is too-long to address immediate emissons reduction needs, and it is possible that carbon dioxide could leak back into the atmosphere or groundwater.
Final rules are not expected until sometime in 2010, according to Benjamin Grumbles of the EPA.
"We think that geologic sequestration is a promising, yet unproven, technology," Grumbles said. "We want to make sure that there are environmental safeguards to prevent the migration of CO2 or any other type of substance into underground sources of drinking water."
Grumbles has been called to testify on July 24 before members of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce on the environmental effects of carbon sequestration.
Last week a Canadian firm announced that it was building a carbon transmission pipeline to be used for CCS in Alberta.
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