Propozycje Ministerstwa Środowiska dotyczące rozwiązań prawnych w zakresie podziemnego składowania dwutlenku węgla

Abstract

Suggestions of the Ministry of the Environment for legal regulations for underground storage of carbon dioxide.A b s t r a c t . On January 23th, 2008 the European Commission proposed binding legislative package, known as the energy and climate change package and aimed at implementation of assumptions adopted in 2007 to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. One of these documents is Directive 2009/31/EC on the geological storage of carbon dioxide, whose guidelines allow to demonstrate on an industrial scale with a full chain of clean coal technology, that is the CCS technology (CSS — Carbon dioxide Capture and Storage). In conjunction with Directive 2009/31/EC, two demonstration projects of CCS are planned for the implementation in Poland. Arrangements for implementation of these demonstration projects are connected with the obligation of the Member States to begin evaluations of possibilities of safe underground storage of carbon dioxide in their territories. To demonstrate CCS technology in our country is also necessary to amend the existing law as the current regulations of the Geological and Mining Law (J.L. 2005, No. 228, pos. 1947) do not allow injection of carbon dioxide into deep geological horizons in the scale required by the CCS Directive. The deadline for transposing provisions of Directive 2009/31/EC into national law is June 25th,  2011. The article presents the current legal status of the underground storage of carbon dioxide and summarizes key changes in legislation as proposed by the Ministry of Environment to meet EU guidelines in this field. Attention is also paid to the geological surveys for geological carbon sequestration, currently conducted in agreement with the Directive.