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Clean Industry

Industrial heat is a major, overlooked source of emissions

The industrial sector is responsible for nearly a quarter of U.S. climate pollution. 12% comes from manufacturing, most of which is from burning fuel to make heat.

Sources: EPA National GHG Inventory (2018) & DOE Manufacturing Energy and Carbon Footprints (2018).
12%Manufacturing
Manufacturing emissions
  • Chemicals combustion — 22%
  • Pulp & Paper combustion — 6%
  • Food & Beverage combustion — 6%
  • Other manufacturing combustion — 43%
  • Non-combustion process — 23%

Clean heat technologies are commercially available and ready to deploy

Electrode boilers
Electric steam generation
Source: Cleaver-Brooks
Air-source heat pumps
Efficient low/medium-temp heat
Source: AtmosZero
Electric ovens
Direct process heating
Source: Sveba Dahlen
Electric dryers
Direct process heating
Source: Lessine

Inside an electrified plant: the ethanol archetype

Step through the scenarios: the gas boiler house swaps to an electrode boiler or heat pump, and the direct-fired dryer goes electric. Watch the steam shift from natural gas to electricity. Hover any unit for detail.

One of 32 engineering archetypes we developed — one for each industrial subsector in our analysis.

Electricity Steam (from gas) Steam (from electric) Natural gas Process stream
Source: The 2035 Initiative.

We turn engineering and policy analysis into practical roadmaps for decarbonizing industrial heat.

Our engineering archetypes show how policy can accelerate clean technology adoption across different industries. We turn this analysis into state-level reports that quantify the impact of industrial electrification on pollution, community health, and facility costs.

Research in this area

Reports

Policy Briefs

Technical Documentation

Five-page technical archetype overviews documenting process energy use and clean-heat electrification opportunities across key industrial subsectors, organized by NAICS code.

View the archetype code on GitHub ↗

Media

Talks, webinars, and news from our clean-heat work.

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