Why critics of carbon capture say it's a distraction from getting to net zero.

From American public media, this is Marketplace Tech. I'm Lelie Mali.

In rural North Dakota, an old coal-fired power plant is being retrofitted to capture emissions

before they enter the atmosphere and store them underground.

$890 million from the 2022 bipartisan infrastructure law will go towards that

and two similar projects in California and Texas.

Critics take issue with spending taxpayer money to kick the tires on carbon capture and

storage technology. They include Catherine McKenna, Canada's former minister of

environment and climate change. She's now CEO of Climate and Nature Solutions and shares the UN's expert group on

Net Zero commitments.

So when we start talking about carbon capture and storage, in particular I'm talking

about oil and gas for fossil fuel companies.

It's not a solution that's going to be at any kind of scale or any cost, a particular affordable

cost.

So one, it's a distraction from what needs to happen now,

which is reduce emissions by half globally by 2030.

But the other problem is that it's a solution that ranks really low on real solutions.

So fossil fuels, there's an alternative to fossil fuels.

It's renewable energy and in particular we've seen wind and solar energy. The price have gone down

drastically and we have better battery storage so we have other solutions. So my

concern and I've really seen this in Canada but also globally is that you have fossil fuel

companies talking about carbon capture and storage as if it's like a big

...