Let's cut to the chase. You're hearing a lot about carbon capture and storage (CCS) and direct air capture (DAC). Politicians tout it. Fossil fuel companies love it. Tech optimists dream about it. But when you strip away the press releases and the glossy brochures, you're left with one nagging question: does this stuff actually work? I'm not talking about in a lab or a pilot project. I mean at the scale needed to make a dent in the climate crisis, in the real world, with real money and real physics. The answer isn't a simple yes or no. It's a messy, complicated, and frankly frustrating "it depends." Let's unpack why.
How Carbon Capture Works: Two Main Flavors
First, clarity. "Carbon capture" usually means two different technologies, and confusing them is a classic mistake.
1. Point-Source Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
This is the classic model. You attach a chemical filter to a big smoke stack—at a coal plant, a cement factory, a steel mill. The flue gases pass through, and a solvent (like amine) grabs the CO2. You then heat the solvent to release pure CO2, compress it into a liquid, and ship it via pipeline to be injected deep underground, hopefully forever. The key word here is "point-source." It's catching emissions before they hit the atmosphere.
2. Direct Air Capture (DAC)
This is the newer, more sci-fi version. Giant fans suck in ambient air, run it over chemical filters to pluck out the CO2 (which is very dilute—only about 0.04% of the air), and then you store that CO2 too. DAC isn't about stopping new emissions; it's about cleaning up old ones. It's like trying to remove a spoon of salt from an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Technically possible, but it takes a staggering amount of energy.
Most of the public debate and policy confusion happens because people are talking about these two very different things interchangeably. One tries to stop the tap from dripping. The other tries to mop up the ocean that's already leaked.
The Real-World Report Card: Successes and Stumbles
Forget theory. Let's look at the track record. I've followed these projects for years, and the pattern is revealing.
| Project Name | Type | Location | Key Metric | The Reality Check |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quest (Shell) | CCS (Hydrogen Plant) | Canada | Captures ~1 MtCO2/year since 2015 | Often called a success, and technically it is. But it's heavily subsidized and captures CO2 used for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR)—pumping it into old wells to squeeze out more oil. The climate math gets fuzzy fast. |
| Boundary Dam | CCS (Coal Power) | Canada | World's first post-combustion coal CCS | A technical marvel that has been plagued with reliability issues and high costs. It's operated far below its designed capacity for long stretches. Shows the difficulty of retrofitting old plants. |
| Sleipner & Snøhvit | CCS (Natural Gas) | Norway | Storing ~1 MtCO2/year for decades | The gold standard. Operates reliably because Norway's carbon tax made it cheaper to store the CO2 than vent it. Proves storage can be safe and permanent, but needs strong economics. |
| Orca (Climeworks) | Direct Air Capture | Iceland | Captures 4,000 tCO2/year | A groundbreaking DAC plant. But do the math: 4,000 tons. The world emits about 40 billion tons a year. Orca would need to be 10 million times bigger to offset current emissions. It highlights the monumental scale challenge. |
Look at that table. The projects that work best are tied to specific industrial processes or have a rock-solid financial driver (like a tax). The ones attached to coal power struggle. And even the celebrated successes are operating at a scale that's microscopic compared to the problem.
The Scale Problem in a Nutshell
The International Energy Agency (IEA) says we need to capture and store about 1.2 billion tons of CO2 annually by 2030 to be on track for net-zero. As of 2023, global capture capacity was about 45 million tons per year. We need to build the equivalent of about 30 Sleipner fields every single year for the rest of this decade. We're not on pace. Not even close.
The Three Biggest Hurdles to Real Effectiveness
So why aren't we scaling this faster if it's so important? It's not a conspiracy. It's physics, engineering, and money.
1. The Energy Penalty (It's a Hungry Beast)
This is the killer most people don't talk about. Capturing CO2 isn't magic. It takes a lot of energy. For a coal plant with CCS, 20-30% of the plant's total energy output might go just to running the capture and compression equipment. You have to burn more coal to capture the CO2 from burning coal. It's a brutal feedback loop. For DAC, it's even more extreme because you're processing enormous volumes of air.
Where does that energy come from? If it's from fossil fuels, you're chasing your tail. For carbon capture to be a net climate win, it must be powered by vast amounts of zero-carbon energy. And right now, we need every bit of that clean energy to replace fossil fuels directly. It creates a competition for renewables.
2. The Cost Chasm
Current CCS costs range from $50 to over $150 per ton of CO2 captured. DAC is even more eye-watering, between $600 and $1000 per ton, though companies like Climeworks aim for $300-$400. Compare that to the social cost of carbon (estimated damage) or even the price in carbon markets. It's wildly expensive.
Who pays? Most projects only happen with massive government subsidies or tax credits, like the 45Q tax credit in the U.S. Without a high, global price on carbon pollution, the business case is weak. The fossil fuel industry often advocates for CCS but is rarely willing to foot the full bill themselves.
3. The Infrastructure Mountain
Let's say you capture the CO2. Now you need to get it to where it can be stored. That means a network of pipelines spanning continents, from industrial hubs to suitable geological sites (like the US Gulf Coast or the North Sea). We don't have that. Building it faces the same NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) opposition as any major infrastructure project. Nobody wants a CO2 pipeline running through their town, and a leak, while rare, can be dangerous.
Storage site permitting is also slow. You need to prove the geology is sealed for millennia. It's a complex, liability-heavy process.
When Carbon Capture Actually Makes Sense (And When It's a Distraction)
After all this, you might think I'm against carbon capture. I'm not. I'm against magical thinking. Here's where I, and many analysts, draw the line.
Where Carbon Capture is Probably Essential:
- Cement Production: The limestone calcination process releases CO2 inherently. There's no alternative chemistry yet.
- Steelmaking (using blast furnaces): Similar story. The reducing agent is often coke, which emits CO2.
- Bioenergy with CCS (BECCS): If you grow plants (which absorb CO2), burn them for energy, and capture that CO2, you can achieve net-negative emissions. It's a powerful concept, but land-use issues are huge.
- Cleaning up legacy emissions: DAC, once cheaper and powered by surplus renewables, could help lower atmospheric concentrations later this century.
Where Carbon Capture is a Dangerous Distraction:
- As the primary plan for coal and gas power plants: It's often cheaper, faster, and more effective to replace them with wind, solar, and batteries. Using CCS to justify building new fossil plants is a climate risk.
- For "blue hydrogen" from natural gas without ultra-high capture rates: If you're only capturing 70% of the emissions from making hydrogen, you're still leaking a lot of methane and CO2. It can be worse than just burning gas.
- As an excuse to delay decarbonization: This is the big one—"mitigation deterrence." The mere promise of future carbon capture can slow down the urgent rollout of solutions we have today, like efficiency and renewables.
The nuance is everything. Carbon capture isn't a silver bullet. It's a scalpel—a specialized, expensive, energy-intensive tool for specific, tough jobs. Treating it like a silver bullet is a recipe for failure and wasted decades.
Your Carbon Capture Questions, Answered Directly
Can carbon capture actually solve climate change on its own?
No, it cannot and should not be viewed as a standalone solution. The primary strategy must be deep and rapid reduction of emissions at source—phasing out fossil fuels and scaling renewables. Carbon capture is a complementary tool, best suited for tackling emissions from hard-to-abate industrial sectors like cement and steel, and for removing legacy CO2 from the atmosphere. Relying on it as a primary fix is a high-risk gamble, as scaling it to the necessary gigaton level faces immense technological, economic, and infrastructural hurdles.
Why is carbon capture so expensive, and will costs come down?
The high cost stems from immense energy requirements. Capturing CO2, compressing it, transporting it via pipeline, and injecting it deep underground is energy-intensive. For point-source capture, this 'energy penalty' can consume 10-40% of a plant's power output. For Direct Air Capture, the energy needed to process vast volumes of diffuse air is enormous. Costs may decrease with technological innovation and economies of scale, but fundamental thermodynamic limits mean it will likely always be cheaper to not emit a ton of CO2 than to capture it after the fact. Policy and carbon pricing are critical to making it financially viable.
Is carbon capture just an excuse for fossil fuel companies to keep polluting?
This is a major and valid concern. There's a clear risk of 'mitigation deterrence'—where the promise of future capture technology is used to justify continued fossil fuel exploration and delayed action on renewables. Many early CCS projects, like the Sleipner field in Norway, were tied to enhanced oil recovery (EOR), which ultimately produces more oil. For carbon capture to be a legitimate climate tool, its application must be strictly prioritized for mitigating emissions from essential, non-fuel industrial processes and for permanent atmospheric removal, not for prolonging the life of coal or gas power plants without stringent capture rates and permanent storage guarantees.
What happens to the CO2 after it's captured? Is storage safe and permanent?
Safe, permanent storage is the linchpin of effectiveness. The dominant method is geological sequestration, injecting CO2 into deep, porous rock formations capped by impermeable layers, like depleted oil and gas fields or saline aquifers. Sites like the Sleipner project have demonstrated safe storage for decades. Risks include potential leakage, which could negate climate benefits and pose local hazards, and induced seismicity. Rigorous site selection, monitoring, and legal frameworks for long-term liability are essential. The permanence is generally considered to be on millennial timescales if done correctly, but it's not absolute like not emitting in the first place.
So, is carbon capture actually effective? The most honest answer is this: it is a potentially effective tool for a narrow set of difficult problems. It is not effective as a broad-based climate strategy, an excuse for business-as-usual, or a substitute for stopping emissions at the source. Its real-world effectiveness is hamstrung by cost, energy needs, and scale. Our focus should be on deploying it strategically where it's truly needed, while pouring 95% of our effort and capital into the proven, cheaper solutions: efficiency, electrification, and renewable energy. Get that foundation right, and carbon capture might just have a small but vital role to play in the final, toughest mile of the climate fight.
February 27, 2026
1 Comments