Carbon Capture and Storage Is a Texas Opportunity that Younger Generations Can Help Shape

For CCS to become part of Texas’s energy future, the state will need more than strong geology and industry interest; it will need public trust.

By Zack Abnet, Texas State Director at the American Conservation Coalition

As our nation reindustrializes and emerging technologies like AI take shape, energy demand has become one of the defining issues of this decade. As the world’s energy capital, Texas is at the center of these conversations. In reaction to this transformational change, lawmakers and industry are making decisions that will have lasting impacts on our state, and understandably, younger Texans want to be part of that decision-making process.

With a median age of just 36, Texas is one of the youngest states in our union. Our people want to make sure these decisions are properly forward-looking.

Here’s what’s striking about how young Texans actually talk about energy: they’re not interested in false choices. In our conversations held across college campuses, industry tours, and conferences, they’re not asking whether Texas should prioritize jobs, the environment, reliability, or innovation. They’re asking how Texas stays on top, with all the tools we have at our disposal.

For that reason, we get asked a lot about carbon capture and storage, or CCS, because it is one of the most promising tools available for clean, firm energy production.

CCS is having its moment because it harnesses Texas’s existing strengths, including an established industrial infrastructure, a skilled workforce, and geology uniquely suited for storing carbon permanently underground. For industries like power generation, steel, and cement, CCS offers a path to modernize operations and compete in markets where customers, investors, and younger workers are paying close attention to affordability, reliability, and cleanliness.

For students and young workers, that matters. For this generation of Americans, careers that offer playing a vital role in our economy as well as the future are especially attractive. If Texas gets the policy framework right, CCS can help keep existing industries competitive while creating new pathways for innovation, investment, and good-paying jobs across the state.

The value of CCS isn’t just limited to future jobs for younger Americans because the technology involved isn’t brand new. Carbon capture has been used and studied for decades, including right here in Texas. The skills needed in the field transfer from existing ones in the energy sector. What’s different now is the potential for scale on Texas terms.

We are already seeing that potential take shape, particularly in Southeast Texas and the Permian Basin, providing an early look at what this industry could mean for the entire state. Texas’s growth will require more power generation and an industrial base that can keep producing the fuels, materials, infrastructure, and jobs that a larger, thriving economy depends on. CCS can ensure those sectors can expand and modernize. The projects moving forward today are part of how Texas can prepare for growth without losing the strengths that made it an energy leader.

Texas recently gained primary authority over Class VI carbon storage permitting, putting the state more directly in the driver’s seat. That’s an opportunity to set clear rules that give companies the regulatory certainty to invest, move projects forward efficiently, and ensure Texas leads the buildout of this industry.

But for CCS to become part of Texas’s energy future, the state will need more than strong geology and industry interest; it will need public trust. Encouragingly, a more deliberate conversation around community engagement is already taking shape in Texas, and young people should see that as an opportunity to help shape the process.

As lawmakers look ahead to the legislative session next year, the choices they make could help shape not only individual projects but the broader ecosystem of CCS development across the state. Lawmakers should work with constituents of all ages to build a commonsense framework that gives responsible projects room to grow while ensuring communities have confidence in how this emerging industry develops.

Carbon capture and storage has been around for more than 50 years. What feels different now is the possibility of scale and the chance for Texas to build a thriving industry responsibly. If Texas approaches CCS with the same openness to innovation that has defined its energy leadership, it can help build an energy future that is more competitive, durable, and forward-looking. Young people across our state are ready to be part of shaping that future.

Zack Abnet is the Texas State Director at the American Conservation Coalition (ACC). He’s based in Austin.