Geological storage of carbon dioxide in accordance with Directive 2009/31/WE in Poland and in Germany

The Directive 2009/31 / EC entered into force on the 23 April 2009 and EU member countries had to implement its regulations into their legal system. The Directive regulates the activity of geological storage of CO2. The Derective 2009/31/EC permits the EU member countries to forbid the underground geological storage of carbon dioxide on the whole or part of its territory. In Poland, the preparation for the legislative works on the geological storage of carbon dioxide started already in 2007, i.e. at the moment, when politicians began to speak in the European Union about the need to prepare such a directive. Initially, Poland wanted to prohibit underground geological storage of carbon dioxide (the ban does not apply to the EGR or EOR i.e. injection of CO2 into hydrocarbon reserves for more efficient production). The change of government in 2007 had an impact on the situation in the country. The government (PO-PSL) presented in June 2013 a bill about experimental and demonstration installations of CCS for the capture and storage of carbon dioxide. During the legislative works on implementation of the regulations of Directive 2009/31/EC, the deputy of Polish Parliament (Sejm RP) presented two amendments to the government bill, which had to ban geological storage of carbon dioxide in Poland. According to the first amendments the CCS activity can be used only if the space in which carbon dioxide will be stored, has no other economic, agricultural or natural value. The second amendment gives SejmikWojewódzki the power to decide on the location of carbon dioxide underground storage on its territory. Both amendments were rejected by the PO-PSL coalition, and the Parliament voted for the new law without the regulation contained in art. 4, paragraph 1 of Directive 2009/31/EC. Germany used art. 4, paragraph 1 of Directive 2009/31 / EC (in contrast to Poland). The German Act authorized the federal states to decide whether underground storage of carbon dioxide would be permitted on their territory or not. The first German federal states, which banned underground geological storage of carbon dioxide were Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein. On the territory of Lower Saxony, there is currently a moratorium on underground geological storage of carbon dioxide. The government of Lower Saxony is working on a new law, which will propably ban the CCS activity on its territory in the future