In the fall of 2009, Michael Economides and Christine Ehlig-Economides (“Economides”) published a paper challenging the feasibility of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) -- the suite of technologies involved in capturing CO2 from industrial processes and electricity production and injection of the CO2 into suitable underground formations for long-term isolation from the atmosphere. API contends that their paper includes a number of mis-statements and extremely conservative base assumptions that could lead readers to arrive at inappropriate conclusions regarding the role that CCS can play in addressing CO2 emissions (see document below).
API is not alone in this assessment. A number of prominent groups have gone to the effort of responding to their claims, including the (ZEP), Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, , and Edinburgh University, Imperial College. NRDC has created a blog to address the issue and WRI discusses the broader issues raised by Economides’ paper. When more realistic base assumptions are used, API finds that the Economides’ analytical method can be utilized to prove the opposite conclusion to the one they make in the paper; namely, that management of CO2 emissions through utilization of CCS in a portfolio of energy technologies is eminently feasible.