Full Title: Decarbonize and Defossilize: Transformative Policies to Reduce Chemical Industry Carbon Emissions
Author(s): Anna Johnson, Archibald Fraser, Neal Elliott, and Richard Hart
Publisher(s): ACEEE
Publication Date: April 29, 2024
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Description (excerpt):
The chemical manufacturing sector is the largest and most complex portion of the U.S. industrial ecosystem and is responsible for more than 30% of U.S. industrial emissions. The chemical manufacturing sector is also the industrial sector for which the least progress has been made toward setting a path to zero carbon emissions by 2050.
The chemicals sector should form the foundation of domestic industrial decarbonization policy. This paper examines whether existing domestic federal policies are sufficient to make meaningful progress toward 1) shifting chemical feedstocks to non-fossil-fuel alternatives; 2) decarbonizing the chemical manufacturing processes (primarily process heat); and 3) shifting market demand toward sustainable chemical products.