medium · GMAT Verbal

Carbon-capture equipment retrofitted onto a coal plant traps most of the carbon dioxide the plant emits. But running the equipment consumes a large share of the plant's electricity, so the plant must burn extra coal to produce the same power for customers, and burning that extra coal releases more carbon dioxide.

Which of the following can be most properly inferred from these statements?

  1. Retrofitting carbon-capture equipment onto a coal plant achieves no net reduction in carbon emissions whatsoever.
  2. The carbon dioxide a retrofitted plant ultimately keeps out of the air is less than the amount its capture equipment traps.
  3. The carbon-capture equipment fails to trap most of the carbon dioxide that the coal plant actually emits each year.
  4. Coal plants ought to be shut down entirely rather than retrofitted with the costly carbon-capture equipment now widely available.
  5. Running the energy-hungry capture equipment raises the total amount of electricity the plant ultimately delivers to its paying customers.

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