Study casts doubt on carbon capture

>"All sorts of scenarios have been developed under the assumption that carbon capture actually reduces substantial amounts of carbon. However, this research finds that it reduces only a small fraction of carbon emissions, and it usually increases air pollution," said Jacobson, who is a professor of civil and environmental engineering. "Even if you have 100 percent capture from the capture equipment, it is still worse, from a social cost perspective, than replacing a coal or gas plant with a wind farm because carbon capture never reduces air pollution and always has a capture equipment cost. Wind replacing fossil fuels always reduces air pollution and never has a capture equipment cost."

Isn't the idea to use both renewable energy sources AND co2 capture where possible? I'm not sure I've heard capture proposed as a replacement for renewable energy and that we should just continue using fossil fuels while capturing co2.

>This research is based on data from two real carbon capture plants, which both run on natural gas.

This is related to the last point. Assuming capture plants were run using renewable energy, I'm not sure if there is a net environmental negative from using both together.

Studies today seem like the internet, you can find anything you look for. Publish or perish.

The effectiveness or efficiency of carbon capture at present isn't the point. It's to develop the technology and means of running it for environmental benefit. Only once it's effective would we choose to run it on a large scale. And employing both alternative energy and carbon capture is the best course of action.