DOE Seeks Input on Strategies to Decarbonize America’s Industrial Sector (2024)

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) today announced a Request for Information (RFI) to gain strategic and technical feedback on decarbonizing America’s industrial sector and positioning the United States as a leader in the global clean energy economy. The RFI will inform a new DOE vision study, Pathways for U.S. Industrial Transformations: Unlocking American Innovation,which will identify cost-effective and industry-specific strategic pathways to achieve a thriving U.S. industrial sector with net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050.

Decarbonizing the U.S. industrial sector is an essential component of President Biden’sInvesting in Americaagenda and is key to tackling the climate crisis and revitalizing American manufacturing. The industrial sector accounts for one third of the nation’s energy-related CO₂emissions and is generally considered hard to decarbonize due to the diversity and complexity of energy inputs, processes, and operations across industries. Achieving a net-zero industrial sector by mid-century will require an aggressive, multidimensional approach of increased energy and materials efficiency; expanded use of low carbon fuels, feedstocks and energy sources; industrial electrification; and carbon management technologies.

The RFI and corresponding Pathways for U.S. Industrial Transformations: Unlocking American Innovationstudybuild upon the2022 Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap, thePathway to Commercial Liftoff: Industrial Decarbonization Report, and will consider the technical, financial, social, environmental, and health challenges and opportunities associated with the scale and pace of an industrial transformation.

With this RFI, IEDO seeks input on the following categories:

• Industrial Decarbonization Barriers, Challenges, and Cross-Cutting Strategies
• Framework for Industrial Decarbonization Pathways
• Impacts and Evaluation Criteria for Industrial Decarbonization Pathways; and
• Net-zero Decarbonization Pathways for Specific Industrial Subsectors
• For six manufacturing subsectors: cement, chemicals, food and beverage, iron and steel, pulp and paper, and petroleum refining
• Rest of industry (other manufacturing; agriculture and forestry; mining, oil, and gas; construction; data centers; and water and wastewater treatment)

IEDO welcomes feedback from a diverse group of stakeholders (both within and outside of industry) who will be integral to the transformation of U.S. industry, including associated communities, utilities, low-carbon fuels suppliers, technology developers, engineering consultants, firms designing new facilities, local and regional governments, and more.

Responses to this RFI must be submitted electronically toTransforming-Industry@ee.doe.gov no later than 5 p.m. ET on June 10, 2024.

View the full RFI.

On May 14–15, 2024, DOE will also host a workshop to solicit input from stakeholders across the industrial sector to inform the Pathways for U.S. Industrial Transformations: Unlocking American Innovation study. During the two-day, in-person and virtual workshop, DOE will present the framing, approach, and initial results of the study and will provide stakeholders across industry, academia, and government with an opportunity to provide feedback and help shape the strategies.

Register to attend the workshop.

The RFI, workshop, and vision study inform the strategies execution of DOE’sTechnologies for Industrial Emissions Reduction Development Program(TIEReD),which leverages resources across the Department’s basic and applied technology offices to invest in fundamental science, research, development, initial pilot-scale demonstration projects, and technical assistance and workforce development.

These efforts will also advance two of DOE’s Energy Earthshots™: the™and theIndustrial Heat Shot™.The Energy Earthshots Initiative targets the remaining solution points of the most challenging technical problems across our energy economy and will accelerate breakthroughs of more abundant, affordable, and reliable clean energy solutions within the decade.

DOE is committed to investing in bold industrial decarbonization technologies at each stage of the innovation pipeline.Learn more about DOE’s all-hands-on-deck strategyto decarbonize the U.S. industrial sector.

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