Biden administration commits $6B to cut emissions from high-carbon industries

The Biden administration is committing $6 billion toward cutting planet-warming emissions from some of the nation’s most polluting and difficult-to-decarbonize sectors. 

The funds will go to 33 different projects in sectors including aluminum, cement and concrete, chemicals, iron and steel. It will also go toward the food industry, with projects such as electrifying processes at Kraft Heinz.

Together, the projects are expected to prevent more than 14 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually — equal to the savings of getting 3 million gasoline-powered cars off the roads for a year, the Energy Department said in its Monday announcement. 

The department described the projects as deploying “first-in-the-nation” technologies that have the potential to be adopted more broadly in the future. 

“Spurring on the next generation of decarbonization technologies in key industries like steel, paper, concrete, and glass will keep America the most competitive nation on Earth,” Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in a written statement.

She called it the “largest investment in industrial decarbonization in the history of the United States.”

Other companies selected to receive funding include ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical and Unilever.

Exxon’s project is expected to use hydrogen instead of gas to power the production of plastic, textiles and rubbers; Dow is expected to capture emissions of carbon dioxide and reuse the greenhouse gas to produce components for electric vehicle batteries; and Unilever is expected to replace gas boilers with electric ones and heat pumps at four ice cream manufacturing facilities. 

The $6 billion comes from both the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act.