> If it was true that any carbon capture method that uses energy will emit more carbon that it captures

The only way this works is if it's using excess energy that wasn't produced by processes that emit carbon to start with. Run it on nuclear, solar, etc. and it can work. However, the grid is still awash with coal power! There's no way any machine is going to capture more carbon per KW consumed energy than the coal to produce that many KW emitted to start with.

So, does it makes sense to deploy this in areas with a ton of green energy available on the grid? Maybe... but those areas have lower PPM carbon in the air, so it's not the right place to run the machine anyway.

Perhaps instead of all this wasted effort and engineering time, we could just replace the damned coal plants and stop emitting carbon itself.