EPA DEVELOPING POLICY ON CO2 STORAGE, BUT FACES LONG-TERM QUESTIONS

摘要

EPA is developing first-time guidelines addressing the permitting of pilot projects for underground carbon dioxide (CO2) storage — an alternative to letting the greenhouse gas escape into the atmosphere — in what agency and other sources say is likely a prelude to further decisions facing regulators on how to oversee geologic storage of the gas to combat global warming. But since the policy will focus on pilot projects, the agency will still face questions over how to deal with the issue in the long term, as state and federal regulators grapple with how to deal with the millions of tons of carbon that may eventually be injected underground annually by power plants seeking to limit their environmental foot-print.