VOLUNTARY NORTH AMERICAN CO2 STORAGE STANDARD TO BE RELEASED WITHIN WEEKS

Tamar Hallerman
GHG Monitor
10/5/12

A group of carbon capture and sequestration industry stakeholders is gearing up to release North America’s first consensus-based standards for CO2 storage in the coming weeks, with plans in the works to develop similar guidelines for the full CCS value chain on an international basis by 2014. Bringing an end to a process that has taken more than two years to complete, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is preparing to release standards that essentially codify, in a non-binding way, industry best practices for storage site modeling, CO2 injection, site closure and short-term post-injection monitoring and verification for permanent sequestration sites, according to the University of Calgary’s Bob Page, who was involved with the creation of the CSA standards.

In remarks this week at a panel event at the International Emissions Trading Association’s North American Carbon Forum in Washington, D.C., Page said that while some regulators already require many of the storage site precautions that will be included in the standard, industry groups often find having a single international standard helpful. “With these standards, we’re looking to create a new middle ground between government regulation on one side and voluntary actions by companies on the other,” Page said. “Voluntary actions [by industry groups] are often not credible to the public, and on the other hand, government regulations are often viewed with less than enthusiasm by industry.” Once finalized, industry groups in the U.S. and Canada can voluntarily agree to accept the standards. Page said that industry stakeholders were the main drivers behind the creation of the standards. “Industry wants to be able to go to their investors and say that these storage projects are meeting the highest industry standards,” he said in an interview.

Page said that groups looking to meet the standard also get the benefit of third-party verification, which can be helpful in terms of gaining public acceptance for storage projects. “This is an insurance policy of sorts for industry, but above all it’s a public credibility policy and I think that’s its greatest strength,” Page said. “Governments participate in the process, as do other stakeholders, but this is an independent process. This is not disguised regulation.”

Similar Group Pursuing Int’l Standards Through ISO

The promulgation of the North American requirements also recently prompted the development of similar international standards for the whole CCS value chain via the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Page, who is also chairing ISO’s 14000 series on international environmental standards, said that a similar but expanded group that worked on the CSA standards will also be developing the ISO version slated for release in 2014. He said the group had its inaugural meeting this summer in Paris and that it garnered participation from three dozen countries.  “We’re trying, with the ISO standard, to create a kind of seal of approval for what is internationally recognized as best practices for CCS,” according to Page. “We really feel this issue of public credibility is something that is in desperate need of further work and new tools, and we hope that our process will contribute to that in a way which is compliant and reflective of business practices today in a way which can be useful to public, industry or governments going forward.”

Page noted that the idea of industry standards are of particular interest to east Asian countries such as China, Japan and South Korea, which have been looking to pursue CCS projects in recent years but are also concerned about trade disputes with western governments. “Standards are just booming in the developing world,” Page said. “While it’s important in the U.S. and Canada and Western Europe, the developing world is where the greatest expansion is taking place today because those countries don’t have the human or financial resources to regulate. So if they can get voluntary standards accepted by their account in the companies, then they can be sure that their product is acceptable to the EU or American or other markets.”