Karen Frantz
GHG Monitor
1/24/14
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board voted unanimously at a meeting this week not to further review the science behind the EPA’s proposed rule that essentially forces coal-fired power plants to use carbon capture and sequestration technology to meet new greenhouse gas emission standards. Although during the teleconference panel members raised concerns about the “new and emerging science” of geologic sequestration of CO2, and several members of the public also said several issues surrounding CO2 storage still need to be settled, the group ultimately accepted the EPA’s argument that its rule only focuses on carbon capture, with storage falling under a different regulatory mechanism, and thus is not subject to SAB review.
The SAB agreed to draft a letter to the EPA that said it accepted the EPA’s legal view that the rule did not apply to carbon sequestration and that it would not undertake further scientific review, but which would also say that further scientific review by another entity of the information related to commercial-scale sequestration offerings is merited and which would urge ongoing agency review of the implementation of capture technology as it evolves in response to the rule and other developments.
SAB Working Group Findings
A working group of the SAB first told the larger panel late last year that the peer review of the scientific and technical information supporting the rule appeared to be inadequate, flagging updates to studies of the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory that appeared to have not gone through peer review, and said that the rule relies on new technologies and science for carbon capture and storage. But the work group later changed its tune after holding fact finding sessions with EPA staff and receiving additional information from the Agency, and ultimately recommended that the full SAB not review the science supporting the standards of performance for greenhouse gas emissions from new electric utility generation units, finding that a review would not provide additional benefit to the proposed rule.
“The EPA has also noted on several occasions that the proposed rule does not address carbon sequestration,” Jim Mihelcic, a working group member, told the full SAB on the teleconference, explaining the rationale for the recommendation. “It relies on permitting and reporting requirements for carbon dioxide sequestration required in the Office of Water’s Underground Injection Control Program for carbon dioxide geological sequestration.” Mihelcic also said that the EPA explained that some carbon capture demonstration projects that were in advanced stages of development but not yet fully operational still met requirements for feasible technology, and that the EPA provided additional information to the working group on the NETL studies and explained that although additional peer review of the NETL studies had not been conducted, such additional steps are not typically required unless new modeling procedures are employed, conforming with DOE protocol.
“I would also like to state publicly that at no time was the work group pressured by anyone,” Mihelcic said. “This simply was a process where additional clarifying information was provided by the Agency and the public over a several month period, over several public meetings and over several requests to the Agency to provide the work group with additional information, as our work group did not obtain all information at the beginning of the fact finding process to make this decision.”
Public Commenters Seemingly Unconvinced
A number of people spoke out against the EPA rule on the teleconference, many arguing that underground storage of CO2 is an unsettled issue that poses significant problems. “A key question for the SAB is whether the EPA has presented peer-reviewed science showing millions of tons of CO2 can be injected and stored underground across the country each year,” said Fred Eames, representing the CCS Alliance. “If the SAB hasn’t seen that evidence, it should review the science EPA has presented and advise whether it supports the proposed rule. I submit the SAB can’t receive such evidence because it doesn’t exist, and that’s well known. One megaton per year of geologic storage, which is the amount considered to be large scale, has never occurred in saline aquifers in the U.S. I repeat, never. DOE has led research for a decade successfully injecting a few thousand tons into many saline formations. Only two sites in the U.S. have tried saline injections on anything approaching a large scale. That’s helpful, but it does not prove that millions of tons each year could be injected in these formations for decades.”
And Timothy Gablehouse, a lawyer with Gablehouse Granberg LLC, an environmental law practice, said there are still a number of unknowns in terms of where CO2 injected into the ground will go. “Is it going to chemically bind with minerals in the subsurface or is going to dissolve in groundwater?” he said. “And that is obviously going to be an exceptionally site specific problem. As currently proposed, different sites are definitely going to behave differently and it’s not at all clear that the underground injection permitting approach is going to handle that.” He also said that there are unresolved issues in regions west of the Mississippi in terms of who owns the pore space in the subsurface and who owns what’s currently in the pores in the subsurface. “Different states would provide a different answer to that question—in terms of whether it’s the surface owner who owns the pore space, whether it is a mineral owner that owns the contents of the pore space, or just exactly how that shakes out. But that is going to be a state-by-state specific problem. It is also not addressed in the Underground Injection Control program.”
