Industrial Decarbonization Pathways Modeling

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Efficiency and Decarbonization Office (IEDO) is developing a new vision study on Pathways for U.S. Industrial Transformations: Unlocking American Innovation to help identify cost-effective and industry-specific strategic pathways to achieve a thriving U.S. industrial sector with net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. This vision study builds off existing prior research and stakeholder engagement and will gather input from the Transforming Industry Request for Information (RFI) and workshop (May 14-15, 2024, in Arlington, Virginia). 

As part of this study, IEDO is conducting subsector deep dives to assess technology-specific impact and sensitivity modeling and analysis. The manufacturing subsectors included are the five covered by the Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap (cement, chemicals, food and beverage, iron and steel, and petroleum refining), as well as pulp and paper as a sixth subsector. The study also extends the Roadmap analysis to include both energy-related and non-energy-related (e.g., process) emissions, and material efficiency considerations. IEDO is also beginning to explore decarbonization pathway options for the rest of the industrial sector, which covers other manufacturing subsectors (outside the six included in the deep dives); the nonmanufacturing subsectors of agriculture and forestry, mining, oil, and gas, and construction; data centers; and water and wastewater treatment.