Vinod Khosla

Prediction · Technology

“It will work.”

Vinod Khosla, venture capitalist, interviewee · 28 September 2007 · Interviews - Vinod Khosla (Frontline Heat) (PBS Frontline)

Carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants will work technically.

Mostly true True in substance, wrong in a detail.

The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.

What would count as true or false

No horizon is given, so judge on the evidence available when the research is done. The test is whether carbon capture and sequestration on coal-fired power plants has been shown to work technically: capturing CO2 from a coal plant's flue gas at commercial or near-commercial scale and permanently storing it or injecting it underground. Cost and commercial success are not the test. True: at least one coal power CCS installation (for example a Boundary Dam- or Petra Nova-type project) has captured and stored or injected CO2 at roughly its design capture rate over sustained operation. Mostly true: coal CCS has run at scale and captured and stored substantial CO2, but with significant technical shortfalls against design rates or long outages. Mixed: projects ran, but performance problems are serious enough that credible sources dispute whether the technology works reliably. Mostly false: only pilot-scale capture on coal plants has worked, and scaled-up attempts failed technically. False: coal CCS attempts have failed technically, with no meaningful capture and storage achieved.

Evidence

1. BD3 Status Update: Q3 2025 SaskPower · 27 October 2025

   “As of the end of Q3, a total of 7,095,042 tonnes captured since start up in 2014.”

2. Investments in coal projects and emissions abatement – Coal 2025 – Analysis - IEA International Energy Agency · 12 August 2026

   “and the Petra Nova coal power project, which resumed operations in 2023 and captures 1.4 Mt CO2 annually; and in Canada, the Boundary Dam coal power project capturing 1 Mt CO2 per year.”

3. The ill-fated Petra Nova CCS project: NRG Energy throws in the towel Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) · 3 August 2020

   “Emissions data for Parish Unit 8 reported to the EPA suggests the actual CO2 capture rate was substantially lower than 90%, perhaps as low as 65% to 70%.”

4. The ill-fated Petra Nova CCS project: NRG Energy throws in the towel Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) · 3 August 2020

   “But Petra Nova’s owners have never provided the actual data behind that claim.”

Reasoning

SaskPower's Q3 2025 update reports that Boundary Dam Unit 3, a coal plant, had captured 7,095,042 tonnes of CO2 since it started up in 2014 (E1). That shows sustained capture at commercial scale, and the IEA also lists Petra Nova as a coal CCS project that resumed operations in 2023 (E2). However, about 7.1 Mt over roughly eleven years averages well below the 1 Mt per year the IEA gives for Boundary Dam (E2). IEEFA argues that Petra Nova's real capture rate was well below its 90% design target and says the owners never released the underlying data (E3, E4). So coal CCS has run at scale and captured substantial amounts of CO2, though IEEFA argues Petra Nova's capture rate was lower than 90 percent [E3], and Boundary Dam's cumulative total since 2014 [E1] works out to an average below the 1 Mt per year the IEA cites [E2].

Cite this claim

Vinod Khosla, “Carbon capture and sequestration for coal plants will work technically.” (said 28 September 2007). Verdict: mostly true. Reliability API, claim c_e2e87b31ec12, method 0.1.0+c876030c. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_e2e87b31ec12