The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration this week proposed a new set of safety requirements for the operators of CO2 and hazardous liquid pipelines.
The requirements are intended to strengthen existing standards for CO2 and hazardous liquid pipelines and, for the first time, establish new standards for transporting CO2 in a gaseous state via pipeline.
The proposal, according to the DOT, is a response to the anticipated growth of the carbon capture and storage industry—an industry that Louisiana is actively positioning itself to be a leader in.
The most notable aspects of the proposal include the following:
- For the first time, design, installation, operation, maintenance and reporting requirements for CO2 gas pipelines would be established.
- New requirements that pipeline operators must adhere to when converting existing pipelines to transport CO2 in different phases would be established.
- All CO2 pipeline operators would be required to provide training to emergency responders and ensure that CO2 detection and other safety equipment is available to those responders.
- More robust requirements for communicating with the public during an emergency would be established.
- More detailed vapor dispersion analyses would be required to better protect the environment and the public in the event of a pipeline failure.
