Storage of Carbon Dioxide (Inspections etc.) Regulations 2012

Lord Teverson Excerpts

Monday 23rd January 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Oxburgh]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association. Given that geological formations do not respect international boundaries, are protocols in place to handle the quite significant likelihood that some of the proposed repositories will cross the border between Scottish waters and English waters? This is a problem which the oil industry faces and solves regularly, and it is simply a matter of ensuring that appropriate protocols are in place in this area as well.

[Lord Teverson]

My Lords, having read through these regulations and the Explanatory Memorandum, I find that most of my questions have been answered. I had not thought of the point about Scotland which has just been raised by the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, and I note that the Explanatory Memorandum states that this procedure fulfils the Hampton principles. I would like to be clear on that. The Explanatory Memorandum stated that this would require only one person for three days a week, and that that would probably be the same person who inspected oilfields. Does that mean that the regulatory authority is the same as the one that looks at oilfields, or is it a separate authority that uses someone from the other authority? It is important to understand what the Government's proposals are in that area.

I was also slightly surprised to see that there had been no consultation. Perhaps this is a minor area but it is always quite useful to learn from industry, and the directive will be three years old in April.

My other question perhaps falls outside the scope of the order. Is the safety of pipelines or other means of transport to the storage area covered by the directive or is it covered elsewhere? I would have thought that that was potentially more risky than the storage itself. Although carbon dioxide is not directly dangerous, if it excludes oxygen or air, it can cause death through overconcentration.

Lastly, I would like to get an understanding from the Minister. Inspection regimes are all very well, and the UK has a very high standard of inspection in these areas. What does he see as the smart areas of inspection of carbon dioxide storage? What are the things that will need to be looked at? Leakages are an obvious answer, but what work will go on to make sure that the inspectorate is active and forward-looking, and that it makes sure that problems do not arise rather than fixes them after they have arisen?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Marland]

It is all in 2012. I am sorry that I did not clarify that but that is the case. As I said, a lot of people are interested in competing—which is encouraging.

On the referendum issue, regulation is in place within Scottish powers so that that is dealt with. On the whole business of inspection, clearly an inspection is annual but the inspectors have—and should have, as the noble Baroness said—the right to carry out spot checks. As the noble Baroness indicated, that is to ensure that this should not be telegraphed and they think, “Ooh, we have to get ourselves ready for the inspection”. An awful lot of people will spend a lot of time on this because it is very important that the inspection is right. The noble Baroness then moved on to ask whether the information will be publicly available. The short answer is yes. The reports of any non-compliance with the recommendations will be put on the public register so that it will be there for all to see.

She then mentioned reasonable excuse and I had to invite a comment from my officials. I will quickly go through what they said. There is an existing regime to deal with operator failures to comply with licences directions of the Secretary of State. A reasonable excuse might be that there is a good safety reason for not complying during an inspection period with inspectors’ request, for example, to switch off the equipment. If the inspector has requested that the equipment is switched off, that would be a reasonable excuse. However, there will not be many reasonable excuses. I hope that that answers the many excellent questions asked.

[Lord Teverson]

I thank the noble Lord. Perhaps I may reassure him that I have consulted with the industry since he spoke. The industry is apparently very happy that he did not consult, so I think that that is fine. I want to come back to one question, because it is important to understand it. It would seem to me that on any CCS project, demonstration or otherwise, there has to be some sort of facility for temporary storage at the power station. It might go straight off on a pipeline, but if there is a problem there has to be some capacity for storage at a power station, whether temporary or permanent. Who is responsible for that sort of inspection? Although it is not envisaged that there should be large-scale onshore carbon dioxide storage, I cannot imagine that there will not be any. As the noble Lord, Lord Marland, says, this refers only to offshore, so I would be interested to understand how that is regulated.

[Lord Marland]

The noble Lord asks an interesting question. I am grateful that he should have given me an elephant trap—which I did not fall into—and dug me out of it. As he rightly says, the current thinking for the previous competition for the demonstration project was entirely for offshore. It could be that there is an onshore project in this competition. It is not thought to be likely at the moment, but it could happen. We would then have to recognise that problem. However, the issue here is not so much about onshore and offshore; it is whether we have the skill and the quality of inspectors. This is a unique process in the large scale; in the small scale it has been proven. All the way along the piece, therefore, we have to ensure that it is being inspected, managed and contained properly. That is why we are giving the inspectorate, which has been so successful in its oil activities, the opportunity as individuals to carry this out.