Technology Deployment Issues

To facilitate the progression of carbon sequestration from regional characterization to pilot-scale testing to commercial readiness, WESTCARB is working to identify and help resolve a host of legal, regulatory, and storage site monitoring issues that must be addressed before sequestration technology can be widely applied.

This is not a simple task. Regulations and permitting requirements, for example, vary from state to state, and sometimes there is uncertainty over which regulations might apply to specific types of sequestration projects. In an early effort to narrow the band of uncertainty, WESTCARB assembled lists of potentially applicable regulations on a state-by-state basis. Since that time, other organizations, such as the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, have also investigated available regulatory frameworks, and have offered recommendations. In 2007, WESTCARB researchers and others examined technical, economic, and regulatory issues for California in preparation of a report to the legislature, Geologic Carbon Sequestration Strategies for California.

At the federal level, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing regulations for commercial-scale projects geologically sequestering CO₂ in order to assure protection of underground sources of drinking water (via the Underground Injection Control program). Previously, EPA had issued a guidance document (UICPG #83) for permitting small-scale underground injections of CO₂, such as the pilot-scale ("Phase II") validation tests being conducted by the DOE regional carbon sequestration partnerships.

WESTCARB has also established a framework for assessing the health and environmental risks associated with geologic sequestration, as such information will be needed to guide site selection, management procedures, and possibly the permitting process.

In addition, WESTCARB is refining models that predict the location of injected CO₂ within porous geologic formations; it is also planning to field-test a suite of monitoring techniques to verify CO₂ location within target geologic formations. The approaches to modeling, measurement, and verification will draw upon the field experience of oil and gas companies in monitoring reservoir gases and in using CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery, as well as on results from other pilot-scale CO₂ storage projects.