If there is one thing that the fossil fuel industry is good at, it’s peddling false solutions to a problem they created. Their latest miracle cure for the climate crisis, carbon capture and storage (CCS) promises to suck up carbon emissions like a vacuum and bury them deep underground. Sounds good in theory. In reality? It is a dangerous distraction, gobbling up billions in public money, enabling more pollution and keeping us hooked on fossil fuels for decades to come.
No matter what the industry says, CCS is not new. It has been hyped for over 50 years. Yet right now, after billions in public subsidies, it has captured and stored about 0.0004% of Canada’s emissions since 2000. Hardly the climate saviour that the fossil fuel industry wants you to believe. The truth is, many of the CCS projects never get off the ground. Last year, Capital Power cancelled its $2.4 billion CCS proposal at the Genesee Generating Station in Alberta, because – surprise, surprise – the economics didn’t make sense.
Public Money, Private Pollution
Even when CCS projects do function, they are often not used to reduce emissions but to produce more oil through a process called Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Globally, nearly 80 per cent of carbon captured through CCS is used to produce more oil by injecting captured carbon into depleted oil wells. Instead of solving the climate crisis, as the oil and gas industry likes to claim, this technology is used to extend the life of fossil fuel production.
All of this would be bad enough if companies were footing the bill – but they aren’t. In Canada, the Pathways Alliance, a group of oil sands giants, is asking for $16.5 billion in public funding to build a mega pipeline across northern Alberta, which is expected to reduce 10 – 12 MT of CO2 by 2030. For context, Canada’s GHG emissions in 2023 were 208 MT of CO2. $16.5 billion for about 5% of reductions? The math doesn’t add up. These billions could instead be used to scale up renewable energy, build retrofits and public transits – real solutions that actually cut emissions, create good jobs and improve people’s lives.
Pipelines of Peril
CCS is also in strife with danger. In 2020, a CO2 pipeline in Mississippi ruptured, sending an invisible plume over the town. 45 people were hospitalized, vehicles stalled, and residents struggled to breathe as carbon dioxide displaced oxygen from the air. Now, similar pipelines are being proposed across Alberta and Saskatchewan. A rupture near a school, community or waterway could be devastating – not just economically, but for human health and safety as well.
The most concerning thing about CCS isn’t that it fails consistently; it’s that it allows big polluters to pretend they’re part of the solution. It gives fossil fuel companies cover to keep expanding production under the guise of being climate allies. Meanwhile, truly effective and proven solutions like renewables are ready now and don’t need another 20 years of subsidies to prove that they work.
CCS is a multi-billion-dollar con. It props up polluters, wastes taxpayer money, puts people at risk and delays the urgent transition off of fossil fuels. We need climate plans that work, not billion-dollar bets on bunk science.
