As Canadians host the 50th annual G7 Summit this week in Kananaskis, Alberta, they can expect a deluge of “climate-saving” proclamations — rhetoric divorced from scientific evidence and economic reality.
This elite gathering of the world’s leading economies, along with the European Union, plans to spotlight climate resilience, net-zero targets, green certification, and renewable energy. But the most heavily hyped technology on the agenda will likely be carbon capture — a scheme billed as the silver bullet for saving the planet from carbon dioxide emissions.
NASA has credited rising CO2 levels with 70% of Earth’s recent greening. More carbon dioxide, not less, helps feed the world.
Carbon capture refers to the removal of carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust or directly from the air. The captured gas is then injected underground or used commercially, such as for boosting oil production. That latter application has proven highly effective worldwide. But the idea of scaling up carbon capture to cool the planet is not just costly — it’s potentially counterproductive.
Carbon capture as a climate fix imposes heavy costs with no measurable benefits. It burdens consumers, risks environmental harm, and distracts from more effective energy solutions. Most proposals target emissions from coal- or gas-fired power plants, where the captured CO2 would be pumped underground and stored permanently.
With Alberta phasing out coal in favor of natural gas, the cost implications matter. Using data from the U.S. National Energy Technology Laboratory, we examined what it would cost to retrofit gas-fired plants in the province with carbon capture.
NETL analyzed two natural gas combined cycle plants: a 727-megawatt and a 992-megawatt facility. The numbers are staggering. For the smaller unit, construction and startup costs would jump from $760 million to $1.4 billion. Annual operation and maintenance would rise from $29 million to $55 million.
For the larger plant, the picture is no better. Costs climb from $1.1 billion to $1.9 billion to build and launch, and annual maintenance surges from $39 million to $70 million — an 80% increase.
On top of the financial hit, carbon capture reduces energy output by about 11%. That means consumers would pay more — for less electricity.
These systems also require an extensive network of pipelines to move CO2 to underground storage sites. One proposal to connect Canada’s oil sands operations with a CO2 transport system estimated the cost at $4 billion. And that’s just for the pipes.
Even if money were no object, carbon capture fails the basic test of relevance. The theory that CO2 is the primary driver of Earth’s temperature remains unproven. Natural factors — like changes in solar output, the planet’s orbit, and its axial tilt — play a far greater role. Alarmist climate models, built on faulty assumptions, fail again and again to match observed data.
According to the CO2 Coalition, even if the United States had reached net-zero emissions in 2010, the reduction in global temperature by 2100 would amount to just 0.1040 degrees Celsius. That’s not a meaningful impact. Alberta’s emissions, by comparison, are a fraction of the U.S. total.
Far from being a pollutant, carbon dioxide is essential to life. It feeds plants, boosts crop yields, and promotes ecosystem health. NASA has credited rising CO2 levels with 70% of Earth’s recent greening. More carbon dioxide, not less, helps feed the world.
Instead of obsessing over how to bury carbon, G7 leaders might do better to look around at the Canadian Rockies and ask why they’re trying to deprive the planet of the gas that makes them so green in the first place.
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