Prime Minister Carney's $16 billion carbon capture plan faces scrutiny from climate experts
A major CCUS project promised to cut oilsands emissions while boosting production, but decades of research show carbon capture has consistently failed to deliver on cost and scale.
Sources · local media reports
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Prime Minister Mark Carney, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and five largely U.S.-owned oilsands companies signed a memorandum of understanding earlier this month promising that a $16 billion carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) project could allow more bitumen production and oil exports while reducing carbon emissions. But the scientific and economic record tells a different story.
The project, the world's largest CCUS installation to date, would collect and bury CO2 oilsands emissions in a saline aquifer the size of Prince Edward Island beneath Cold Lake. Federal Energy Minister Tim Hodgson said CCUS will help make Canada a "clean energy superpower." Oilsands producers call it an "environmental innovation."
Yet study after study documents high costs, serious risks, geological side effects, and broken promises. Most high-profile projects have faced shutdowns, leaks, or technical failures. Two oilpatch veterans recently concluded: "Despite extensive funding and research, carbon capture technologies have failed to deliver scalable, cost-effective, or operationally robust outcomes."
Over three decades, governments have spent more than $40 billion building 70 carbon capture projects connected by 9,000 kilometres of pipeline. Yet they capture and store less than 0.1 percent of annual global emissions. Annual CO2 pollution hovers above 38 gigatonnes; captured carbon amounts to less than 40 megatonnes per year.
The Pathways Project alone may cost $30 billion given the technology's history of cost overruns, despite projections it would sequester only six million tonnes of oilsands emissions annually — emissions the industry expects to grow.
Zooming out to test whether carbon capture can reverse rising global emissions, the evidence says no. The promise that CCUS will rid the world of carbon by 2050 and accelerate innovation faces a fundamental scaling problem: the technology has yet to prove it can work at the speed and cost the climate crisis demands.
By the numbers
How much is the government investing in this carbon capture project?
$16 billion. Prime Minister Mark Carney, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, and five largely U.S.-owned oilsands companies signed a memorandum of understanding earlier in July 2026 for this carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) project.
How much CO2 does global carbon capture currently remove annually?
Less than 40 megatonnes per year. This represents less than 0.1 percent of the roughly 38 gigatonnes of annual global CO2 emissions, despite over three decades of government spending exceeding $40 billion on 70 carbon capture projects.
How much CO2 would the Pathways Project alone sequester annually?
Six million tonnes of oilsands emissions per year. However, the Pathways Project may cost $30 billion given the technology's history of cost overruns, and this sequestration amount is expected to represent a shrinking share as the industry's emissions grow.
