Thursday, June 15, 2023

DOE's awarding $135 Million to reduce emissions in industrial sector.

Happy Thursday!

We decided to start thinking out of the box, when this email caught our eye from the DOE EREE News.  Did anyone receive the newsletter from the US Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy on Thursday, June 15, 2023, the EREE Newsletter’s article titled, “Biden-Harris Administration Announces $135 Million to Reduce Emissions Across America’s Industrial Sector”?  In the article, the EERE speaks about forty projects across twenty-one states which will help reduce carbon pollution from the industrial sector and help the U.S. get to net-zero emissions economy by 2050 by helping with the next generation workforce.  The U.S. industrial sector will be the hardest to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions because it is a major contributor (one-third of the GHG gases), and it is where the products we use every day come from and it is a high energy user.  The DOE in the past identified five energy-intensive subsectors which will have the most benefit from decarbonization and reduction of energy use, and they are cement and concrete, chemicals, food and beverage, iron and steel, and petroleum refining.  The DOE wants to clean up and modernize the paper and wood industries too.  The DOE’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office has chosen forty projects comprised of thirty-six different universities, National Laboratories, and companies who will help with research and development as well as proto-type scale demonstrations into ways to cut energy use and emissions from the five energy-intensive subsectors of the industrial complex.  In the chemical subsector, nine projects worth $38.3 million were selected to help with reducing their carbon footprint and reducing their energy use by innovating technology in the separators and reactors they use as well as coming up with better more efficient ways make heat.  In Texas, Rice University was one of the universities selected to be one of the projects.  In the Iron and Steel subsector, ten projects worth $31.9 million were selected in which they will be making the blueprint for DOE’s Low Emissions Steel Manufacturing Research Program and using clean energy sources and electrification.  They will be getting some of this funding from the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office for these projects.   In Texas, Hertha Metals, Inc. in Brownsville was selected to be one of the projects.  In the Food and Beverage subsector, three projects worth $11.4 million were selected and they will be trying to design innovative technology to reduce emissions and reduce energy use for its heating operations.  In Texas, Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station in College Station was selected in this subsector for a project.  In the Cement and Concrete subsector, five projects worth $16.4 million were selected and they will be trying to invent the next generation for cement mixtures and processes as well as using carbon capture and utilization technologies to help with all its emissions.  DOE has included the Paper and Forests Products in this group of funded projects, and there are six projects worth $16.2 million were selected to help with reducing the GHG emissions by carbon capture and electrification of the industry by concentrating on better processes for novel paper and wood drying technologies, and unconventional pulping and paper forming technologies.  The last seven projects are worth $20.4 million were selected to make gains in all industry sectors by coming up with unconventional ways to reduce GHG emissions and energy use by coming up with more efficient heat pump and making power from low temperature waste heat.   In Indiana, Purdue University was selected for its project.  All these projects are part of what will be the DOE’s Technologies for Industrial Emissions Reduction Development Program (TIEReD) which uses resources from across its department’s applied research offices to invest in America’s future as an innovator, as well as help us clean up the industrial complex, and helping our future workforce.  If you would like to read more about the DOE money selected projects, please click the link: Biden-Harris Administration Announces $135 Million to Reduce Emissions Across America’s Industrial Sector | Department of Energy.

If you would like to read about the U.S. DOE’s Technologies for Industrial Emissions Reduction Development Program, please click the link: Decarbonizing America's Industrial Sector | Department of Energy.

If you would like help in looking into how to update your facility or terminal to make it more efficient or clean up your emissions, contact us via the email in the blog and check out our ESC's website!

We hope you have a great and productive rest of your week!  Keep cool in this heat wave!