Joe Biden administration commits $6B to cut US emissions from high-carbon industries

I'm excited to share some decarbonization news about American industry! Folks these days tend to have a particularly bleak outlook on the environment, but I am convinced that environmental nihilism and defeatism is a direct result of not knowing about the MANY excellent decarbonization projects happening right now. It's critical to understand what's being done to solve modern-day problems both so that you can make informed decisions about your lifestyle and political candidates, but also so that you can have some peace of mind.

Many people seem to think that, other than the burning of fossil fuels for electricity itself, the emissions from cars, trucks, and planes constitute the majority of modern-day emissions because of all the fossil fuels they use for propulsion. Transportation is indeed a big area for improvement, but it's far from the only one. The media puts out a lot of articles about the latest EV battery tech, but almost nothing about emissions from heavy industrial processes which are necessary for modern life and also contribute an enormous amount to climate change. Many industrial emissions are literally, chemically part of material production, or otherwise rely on extremely consistent and high-temperature heat sources which renewable-generated electricity is unsuited for.

The solution is therefore to change industrial processes themselves, not just energy sources. This includes physical innovations in materials and construction techniques as well as new ways to generate heat that can better utilize renewables. The challenge is that decarbonizing industry in this way presents a range of domain-specific problems and is expensive to solve. Every sector has different needs. The federal government is allocating $6,000,000,000 ($6 billion) from Joe Biden's 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act) and 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to decarbonize the sector, as well as matching funds from other sources (apparently totaling $20,000,000,000 [$20 billion]). This funding allows industry to kickstart decarbonized processes (a process which has high upfront costs) which they can cost-effectively build upon in the future to dramatically reduce emissions iteratively over time.

Industrial stakeholders (including the Big Evil Corporations) are interested in improving their processes because it could ultimately save them a lot of money in overhead in the long run, which in turn means cost savings could be passed onto consumers. The less energy they have to spend (waste) making a hunk of steel, the more steel they can make with the same workforce, and the more our society benefits. I think it's important to recognize that industrial players are not automatically the enemy here!

I stole this headline from a summary article from The Hill, but I've linked this post to the actual press release from the Department of Energy. If you're interested in more details, please read it! But here are some highlights (emphasis mine):

The projects will focus on the highest emitting industries where decarbonization technologies will have the greatest impact, including aluminum and other metals, cement and concrete, chemicals and refining, iron and steel, and more. Together, the projects are expected to reduce the equivalent of more than 14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions each year—an amount equivalent to the annual emissions of 3 million gasoline-powered cars. Many of the projects will deploy first-in-the-nation emissions-reducing technologies that have the potential for sector-wide adoption and transformation, multiplying the magnitude of the emissions cuts and supporting the future of U.S. manufacturing. Today’s announcement is the largest investment in industrial decarbonization in American history, helping to position American manufacturers and workers to lead the global clean energy economy.

The industrial sector contributes nearly one-third of the nation’s overall greenhouse gas emissions. This transformative federal investment is matched by the selected projects to leverage more than $20 billion in total to demonstrate commercial-scale decarbonization solutions needed to move the industrial sector toward net-zero emissions. Funded projects will cut carbon emissions by an average of 77%. The industrial sector’s unique and complex decarbonization challenges require equally unique and innovative decarbonization solutions that leverage multiple pathways including energy efficiency, electrification, and alternative fuels and feedstocks such as clean hydrogen.

Here are a list of (some) industrial sectors that this funding will go toward decarbonizing:

• Chemicals and Refining: "opportunities to upcycle captured carbon to value-added products, create high-quality fuels and materials from recycled products, and replace fossil-fired, high-heat processes with decarbonized fuels ... products like clean fuels for the marine sector, electrolytes for electric vehicle batteries, and high-quality plastics"
• Cement and Concrete: "develop new pathways for making traditional Portland cement with lower or zero emissions and to pioneer new materials and new mixtures that can drive the sector to zero emissions"
• Iron and Steel: "decarbonize iron and steelmaking and enable the industry to phase out more traditional carbon-intensive production methods that rely on coal"
• Aluminum and Metals: "In addition to the high-purity aluminum needed for the defense and energy sectors, the selections include projects that would create recycled aluminum for the food and beverage industry and copper for semiconductors and electric vehicles"
• Food and Beverage: "demonstrate highly replicable energy efficiency and electrification solutions for low- to medium-temperature process heat across 16 locations"
• Glass: "validate electric/fuel hybrid furnaces producing low-emission glass bottles, tableware, and food packaging"
• Process Heat: "validate the use of electric boilers and electric steam production to reduce emissions associated with process heating across a wide range of industries"
• Pulp and Paper: "using a novel membrane for an important separations process instead of heat"

You can see a full list of projects being funded from the DOE award negotiations document.

The government writes that a lot of these projects are in historically underfunded areas of the country. So in addition to improving the quality of life for everyone (in terms of emitting fewer greenhouse gases), they are also addressing systemic instances of economic inequality.