Ahead of the November election, the US awards $6bn to CO2 reduction projects in key battleground states
By Anders Lorenzen
In a bid to shore up its climate agenda ahead of the November US election, the Biden Administration has unveiled $6 billion worth of funding for carbon reduction projects.
The US Department of Energy announced funding that would subsidise 33 industrial projects in 20 states. This would cut emissions as well as support well-paying jobs to boost the US economy.
The projects
The funding was unveiled by Energy Secretary, Jennifer Granholm when visiting Cleveland-Clif Steel Corp, Ohio which will receive $500 million out of the $6 billion pot. This will allow the company to install two new electric arc furnaces and hydrogen-based technology, that would reduce emissions by 1 million tons.
Other noteworthy projects are:
Century Aluminum will receive up to $500 million to build the first new US primary aluminium smelter in 45 years in the Mississippi River basin. The project will double the size of the current US primary aluminium industry and will avoid 75% of the emissions from a traditional smelter.
Dow Chemical will receive up to $95 million for a US Gulf Coast facility which will use approximately 100,000 tons of CO2 annually to produce key components of electrolyte solutions needed for electric vehicle batteries.
Kraft Heinz will get up to $170.9 million to upgrade and decarbonize operations at 10 facilities, reducing annual emissions by more than 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide.
ExxonMobil won a $331.9 million award to enable the use of hydrogen in place of natural gas for ethylene production in Baytown, Texas for the key chemical feedstock in textiles, synthetic rubbers, and plastic resins.
The single largest US industrial decarbonisation investment project
Energy Secretary Granholm earmarked the initiative as the single largest industrial decarbonisation investment project in the US. which is expected to eliminate 14 million metric tons of carbon pollution each year. This is the equivalent of taking three million petrol and diesel-powered cars off the road. The Energy Secretary said the projects would slash emissions from numerous industries including iron and steel production, cement, concrete, aluminium, chemicals, food and beverages, pulp and paper, which account for about a third of US carbon emissions.
The manufacturing of construction materials is a significant source of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Cement production, the main ingredient of concrete, accounted for 7% of global CO2 emissions in 2019, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), and thus belongs to the category of industries harder to decarbonise.
This initiative is seen as key to President Biden`s re-election campaign which is attempting to connect job creation with climate action. And it is perhaps not a coincidence that many of these projects are in key battleground states.
However, many might question why the government is handing out funding to some of these companies which are seen as some of the wealthiest US corporations. Indeed, some have significantly contributed not only to the climate crisis but also have actively fought to delay action on climate change and to spread climate misinformation.