American Carbon Registry Announces Stakeholder Consultation for CCS Methodology

Yesterday we posted about recent public consultations of Carbon Credits methodologies. Today we post about similar movement, also recent, related to CCS, Carbon Capture and Storage projects.

The American Carbon Registry (ACR), which develops protocols and tools for greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting based on scientific practice and the International Standards Organization (ISO) 14064 a.o., has published for stakeholder consultation an updated version 2.0 of its methodology for emissions reductions and removals from CCS Projects.

The current methodology basically only focus on the capture, transportation, and storage of anthropogenic CO2, the CO2associated with human activities. The new version of the methodology extends eligibility to projects that utilize Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies such as Direct Air Capture (DAC) and the use of Sustainable Biomass as a feedstock. The methodology also expands the eligibility criteria for geologic storage to include saline formations and depleted oil and gas reservoirs which will significantly expand the geographic range for supported projects. For projects that utilize CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery, Version 2.0 includes calculations to account for emissions from transportation, refining, and end use of the produced hydrocarbons.

One of the first private voluntary offset programs, ACR was founded in 1996 by Environmental Resources Trust. ERT ia a wholly owned nonprofit enterprise of Winrock International, after Winthrop Rockefeller, one of the grandchildren of Standard Oil's co-founder John D. Rockefeller.

ACR credits project-level emissions reductions / removals for the following scopes as defined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI):

1. GHG emission reductions from fuel combustion

2. GHG emission reductions from industrial processes (non-combustion, chemical reaction, fugitive, other)

3. Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry

4. Carbon Capture and Storage

5. Livestock

6. Waste Handling and Disposal

Click on the image below for “CCS Methodology Version 2.0”, open for public comments from September 28, 2022, to November 1, 2022.