HOUSTON, Texas — The world will need fossil fuels for decades but they must be paired with technologies that capture their greenhouse gas emissions, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said Wednesday.

The Biden administration wants the U.S. to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 to help limit global warming. It is seeking to displace oil, gas, and coal with renewable energy and electric technologies, but forecasts, including those by the Energy Information Administration, indicate prolonged demand for traditional energy sources.

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"We know that even the boldest projections for clean energy deployment suggest that, in the middle of this century, we’ll be using abated fossil fuels," Granholm said during remarks at CERAWeek by S&P Global, an annual industry conference in Houston.

"Abated" refers to fossil fuel combustion linked with carbon management technologies, which capture emissions so they can be kept from entering the atmosphere.

"We need both traditional and new energy," added Granholm, who, along with President Joe Biden, has asked the oil and gas sector to increase production to alleviate high energy prices at home and in the larger global energy marketplace.

Her pronouncement comes as many environmental interest groups and some lawmakers in Congress push for policies to block new oil and gas development and related infrastructure to slow climate change.

The administration has supported increased oil and gas production in response to higher prices and the war in Ukraine.

The Inflation Reduction Act, the Democratic energy and healthcare spending law passed in August, strengthened federal tax incentives for carbon capture and storage technologies.

It also included hundreds of billions of dollars in incentives and subsidies for other green energy technologies and environmental programs.

Oil and gas industry players and industrial fossil fuel users widely support the technology, although some Democrats and environmental groups oppose its expansion because it's an approach that doesn't displace fossil fuel use.

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Granholm also announced $6 billion Wednesday to fund decarbonization projects in the industrial sector, which is responsible for approximately a third of total annual emissions.

"We need to advance the technologies for abating fossil emissions, and we need to advance the technologies for clean sources," Granholm said.