[hraedon]

Coal plants aren't profitable to run if they're required to retrofit for carbon capture, not many new coal plants are going to be built in countries that care about climate change (so requiring CCS on new builds has minimal utility), and there are a lot of political obstacles to shutting existing plants down or mandating these sorts of improvements.

Given those constraints, centralized capture is at least a plausible option that doesn't involve starting big fights with entrenched interests in coal-reliant states. Is it more efficient or more likely to work than direct capture? No. It is, however, politically possible and worth exploring.