Bush Strategy To Fight Carbon Emissions Unveiled
Going underground is the "cooler" way to go, at least that’s what U.S. officials are hoping will happen when they bury climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions to keep greenhouse gas from heating up the atmosphere.
The carbon burial process has been a cornerstone of the Bush administration’s strategy to fight climate change without imposing any economy-wide limit on carbon emissions.Â
This is the first time the U.S. government has proposed requirements on how to combat climate change through carbon capture and storage or geologic sequestration.Â
According to Benjamin Grumbles of the Environmental Protection Agency no federal rule is expected until late 2010 at the earliest.
Since 1996, a carbon storage operation has been in place located in porous rocks under the seabed off Norway. The operator known as StatoilHydro has stashed some 10 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Just last week, the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta said it would pay C$2 billion ($2.04 billion) for carbon capture and storage programs.
Grumbles said, currently in the United States carbon dioxide is already being injected into the ground to help energy companies recover more oil and natural gas, a process known as enhanced oil recovery.
"We think that geologic sequestration is a promising, yet unproven, technology," Grumbles said.
The Safe Drinking Water Act would be used to issue the rule. It aims to safeguard underground water supplies from possible contamination.
"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," he said.
He noted the carbon sequestration plan would put large amounts of carbon dioxide underground for long periods under high pressure. However, carbon dioxide is "not toxic or radioactive" — it occurs naturally in addition to being emitted by vehicles, factories and coal-fired power plants.
The rule stipulates "extensive testing and monitoring so that the carbon dioxide does not migrate into an underground source of drinking water."
On July 24, Grumbles is set to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce about the environmental effects of carbon sequestration.
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Image Caption: An illustration of the Sleipner natural gas field in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea which pumps natural gas (green) to the surface and then reinjects excess carbon dioxide (blue) back into porous rocks for burial as part of a plan to slow global warming. The field, the longest-running commercial greenhouse gas burial project in the world, has pumped 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide into the subsea reservoir since it started in 1996, equivalent to about a fifth of Norway’s annual carbon dioxide output. (Credit STATOILHYDRO)
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