Background informations about carbon capture and storage

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is considered to be the main cause of global warming and the level of CO2 in the earth's atmosphere is rising as a result of human activities. Experts agree that a range of actions will have to be taken soon in order to reduce the amount of CO2 entering the atmosphere. Part of the solution could be to capture millions of tonnes of CO2 produced by industrial processes and store it deep underground - this is known as Carbon Capture and geological storage (CCS).

Developing a regulatory framework to address safety concerns

As CCS is a relatively new concept it is not specifically addressed by most laws and regulations (both globally and locally). As with many energy technologies (e.g. natural gas) current evidence suggests that CCS has major accident hazard potential for both the workforce and public. This is largely due to the scale of the projects in question. However, the likelihood of such an occurrence should be very low where the risks are well controlled. The implications were explored in some detail in HSE's published response to the Government's Energy Review consultation in 2006. Since publishing its expert report, HSE has carried out further research and as a result has a better, although still incomplete, understanding of the potential hazards from a large-scale high-pressure carbon dioxide release.

Safe introduction

HSE is working with others by contributing its expertise to enable the safe introduction of this new industrial process to ensure that all reasonably practicable control measures to mitigate against a major hazard incident are put in place by the operator. The consideration of health and safety issues will compliment its effective introduction.

HSE is proposing that appropriate scale experiments are carried out to further our understanding of what happens during large-scale high-pressure CO2 releases.

The hazard classification of CO2 is such that is does not specifically attract the duties of major hazard legislation normally required to control those activities that present significant hazards. HSE is currently considering whether the risks associated with the CCS process merit extending the major hazard regulatory regimes to these projects by looking at further research, practice in other countries and by informal consultation with stakeholders.