Brussels, 23 July 2024 --
The European Commission published updated guidance documents to assist Member States’ governments and developers of carbon capture and storage infrastructure to interpret the CO2 Storage Directive.
Today, 23 July, the European Commission published updated guidance documents to assist Member States’ governments and developers of carbon capture and storage infrastructure to interpret the CO2 Storage Directive.
Chris Davies, director of Carbon Capture & Storage Europe (CCS Europe), and European Parliament's rapporteur on the CO2 Storage Directive in 2008/9 said: “The legislation is now more than 15 years old and yet has still to be put to use. On a commercial basis no CO2 has been injected for permanent storage within the EU since it was approved.
But permanent storage will start very soon, and the Commission’s recent Communication on Industrial Carbon Management suggests that 250 million tonnes of CO2 will need to be stored annually within the European Economic Area by 2040.
The CO2 Storage Directive specifies the need for safe and permanent storage that poses no risk to health or the environment. The revised guidance reinforces this requirement because it is essential that citizens have confidence in a technology that plays a crucial role in the fight against climate change.
Yet it still provides no assessment of what standards of CO2 purity are acceptable, leaving to operators to impose their own requirements at a cost that may be so onerous that industry emitters continue to release CO2 into the atmosphere".