After President Joe Biden signed his two landmark climate bills, the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, billions of dollars in federal funding became available to companies trying to capture carbon under the guise of climate action. In theory, carbon capture sounds great. In practice, however, it’s much more complicated. Industries like aviation and cement haven’t yet figured out how to be carbon-neutral without the promise of such technology. The problem is that carbon capture rarely works the way proponents want it to.

Here’s a quick primer on the tech. Carbon capture tries to catch carbon dioxide before it enters the atmosphere at the facility where it is emitted—not to be confused with direct air capture, which removes carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. From there, the carbon can either be stored deep underground where it can stay for millennia or be put to use elsewhere. 

Repurposing waste sounds useful, but it’s complicated—and convoluted. These days, roughly three-quarters of the captured carbon goes toward enhanced oil recovery, where a company injects the carbon dioxide into an existing oil well to get even more oil. 

Behind all these processes—capturing, compressing, storing, and repurposing carbon—is power. Adding CCUS to a coal-fired power plant, for instance, increases its fuel demands by up to 40% and its water use by 55%. 

“You need more energy,” said Mark Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University who has published research on the pollution these plants can cause. “Some people argue, What if we use renewable energy to run carbon capture equipment? Well, it’s the same thing because there’s only a finite amount of renewable energy. If you’re using renewable energy for carbon capture, you’re not using it to replace fossil fuel power plants.”

Given the urgency of the climate crisis, leaders shouldn’t waste time on infrastructure that will lock in more emissions, Jacobson said. “You can take that same money and energy and invest them in renewable energy to replace a fossil source,” he said. Transitioning to clean energy sources rather than trying to clean up dirty ones would improve public health, too. “You’re going to get much more benefit—not only would you reduce more carbon dioxide, but you’d eliminate all the air pollution, which you’re not doing with carbon capture.” 

In Louisiana, a few projects proposed with carbon capture technologies include a $7 billion blue hydrogen facility in Ascension Parish and a $4.6 billion ammonia plant in St. Charles Parish, both of which require methane gas, a fossil fuel, to operate. As gas is extracted, transported, and burned, it releases irritants like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide that are harmful to human health. According to a 2021 study, air pollution from fossil fuels kills 8 million people annually—about one in five deaths worldwide.

When it comes to reproductive health, the level of exposure to these pollutants makes all the difference. In Louisiana, a combination of poor air quality, low incomes, and systemic racism is linked to higher rates of poor birth outcomes within the state and compared with the U.S. average, according to research still under peer review but shared in the Human Rights Watch report last month. The research assessed birth records across the state from 2011 and 2020 and compared them to census tract-scale air pollution levels in 2017. 

The most polluted places had a 36% higher risk of low birth weight and a 25% higher risk of preterm birth compared to the least polluted places in Louisiana. The study found evidence that air pollution was linked to more than one in three of the low birth weight cases and more than half of the preterm births in the state. 

“Both pollution and social factors play a really big role,” said Kimberly Terrell, author of the research and a staff scientist at the Tulane Environmental Law Clinic. “If somehow we could wave a magic wand and tomorrow eliminate all social deprivation in Louisiana, we would still have an elevated rate of low birth weight and preterm birth because of the effects of air pollution.”

Terrell said that regulators should strive to reduce air pollution in the same way they want to see carbon emissions cut. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken steps recently, like strengthening national air pollution standards last month. But Louisiana hasn’t caught up with the reality of how people are exposed to these chemicals. Currently, the state’s ambient air standards for toxic pollutants look at one chemical at a time instead of the combined exposure communities actually face from multiple chemicals. 

“There is no person in Louisiana who breathes only one pollutant at a time,” she said.

Advocates have grown even more concerned about air pollution impacts since the EPA gave the state the power to approve carbon capture projects back in December. If state officials haven’t done enough to protect their health from other industries, why would that be any different for the carbon capture industry? 

The situation feels even more dire as healthcare comes under attack in the state—from bans on abortion to bans on gender-affirming care. Finding doctors in rural communities was already a struggle. Now, it feels worse, said Morgan Moone, the strategic data and advocacy manager for the Reproductive Justice Action Collective, part of the Louisiana Coalition for Reproductive Freedom, which has been organizing around reproductive rights for decades. “We see not only the doctors leaving, but entire families leaving,” she said.

The coalition is starting to think more deeply about how its work connects to the environment, especially as the carbon capture industry grows in Louisiana. “Things are happening so fast, that it’s hard to keep up,” Moone said. “People are feeling overwhelmed—and rightfully so. If you have someone trying to take all your rights away, you might not care about climate justice because we’ve been taught to silo everything.”

However, not all government officials want to see the new industry run wild in the state. Davante Lewis, who serves the third district on the Louisiana Public Service Commission, wants to see new job opportunities in Louisiana—but not at the cost of people’s health. 

“If you come to Louisiana, we pride ourselves in caring about our people and land, and we will make sure everything for them comes before everything else,” he said.

As a public service commissioner responsible for regulating local utilities, Lewis wants to see the clean and renewable energy sector grow, instead. That way, Louisianans can get jobs and affordable energy without sacrificing their health. He is skeptical of the way the carbon capture industry is being presented as a “grand solution,” he said. 

“Why am I burning more carbon to then theoretically capture carbon?” Lewis said. “It creates a paradox.”

Indeed, alternatives to CCUS exist—ones that won’t keep spewing toxins into the air and complicate pregnancies. Every person deserves the right to bodily autonomy—whether that’s aborting a fetus or carrying it to term. Everyone should be able to say yes when they ask themselves if their environment is safe enough to bring a child into. 

In Louisiana, that’s not true for everyone—yet industry isn’t held accountable. Only doctors and women are.