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DOE OSTI2022

U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Decarbonization Roadmap

The science is clear that significant greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions are needed to moderate the severe impacts of ongoing climate change. Bold action is needed, and the Biden Administration has set goals of 100% carbon pollution-free electricity by 2035 and net-zero GHG emissions by 2050. The U.S. Long-Term Strategy (LTS) presents multiple pathways to a net-zero economy by no later than 2050. Addressing environmental justice and energy equity will be integral to meeting these climate goals. The United States’ overall industrial decarbonization strategy will support the Biden Administration’s Justice40 Initiative, which pledges that at least 40% of overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy will be delivered to disadvantaged communities. The U.S. net-zero GHG 2050 goal, while ambitious, is achievable and will provide important benefits for all Americans in terms of public health, economic growth, reduced conflict from climate-related disasters, and quality of life. While this roadmap focuses on GHG emissions, other pollutant emissions will also need to be addressed as industry decarbonizes. Developing new technologies to reduce GHG emissions is an important opportunity to address other environmental issues and inequities. DOE is currently focusing on energy and environmental justice in complementary programs and initiatives. The U.S. industrial sector is considered a “difficult-to-decarbonize” sector of the energy economy, in part because of the diversity of energy inputs that feed into a heterogenous array of industrial processes and operations. In 2020, the industrial sector accounted for 33% of the nation’s primary energy use and 30% of energy-related carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions.

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES↗

DOE OSTI2023

National Wind Workforce Assessment: Current Workers to Industry [Slides]

As a part of the National Wind Workforce Assessment, four presentations have been created in conjunction with the technical report to provide more insight into key findings. The four presentations are catered towards specific stakeholder groups that include: educators, wind industry firms, students, and current wind industry employees. This presentation is intended for us by wind industry employers and current workers, including recent graduates in work, looking to gain insight into key levers that can contribute to the narrowing or widening of the wind workforce gap. The discussion around how the wind workforce gap is brought up as it relates to current workers and recent graduates and barriers to employment for wind energy firms. It breaks down the discussion by discussing about wind industry perceptions by current workers and wind energy firms, hiring challenges by wind energy firms as well as consideration by prospective workers on the wind industry, and then lastly discusses automation and its contribution to narrowing the wind workforce gap.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2023

Connective Actions for Educational Institutions and Wind Industry Firms [Slides]

As a part of the National Wind Workforce Assessment, four presentations have been created in conjunction with the technical report to provide more insight into key findings. The four presentations are catered towards specific stakeholder groups that include: educators, wind industry firms, students, and current wind industry employees. This presentation is intended for use by wind industry firms and educational institutions looking to gain insight into key levers and actionable steps that can be taken to help narrow the wind workforce gap. Data and guidance on how wind industry firms and education institutions can collaborate to 1) grow the number of graduates applying into wind occupational roles through increasing awareness of opportunities in the industry and 2) increase the quality of applicants applying into wind through relevant experience gaining opportunities like internships and apprenticeships is included in the presentation.

17 WIND ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2024

2022 Bioenergy Industry Status Report

This report provides a snapshot of the bioenergy industry status at the end of 2022. The report compliments other annual market reports from the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) offices and is supported by DOE's Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO). The 2022 Bioenergy Industry Status Report focuses on past year data covering multiple dimensions of the bioenergy industry and does not attempt to make future market projections. The report provides a balanced and unbiased assessment of the industry and associated markets. It is openly available to the public and is intended to compliment International Energy Agency and industry reports with a focus on DOE stakeholder needs.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Development of 250 kW Ammonia and Hydrogen Industrial Burner Test Facility at the National Energy Technology Laboratory

In an effort to investigate the viability of ammonia and hydrogen as fuels in the industrial heating sector, the Department of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory is developing a 250 kW burner test facility. The pursuit of a decarbonized industrial heating sector requires innovative approaches to convert existing assets to alternative fuels while maintaining adequate radiative heat transfer and limiting NOx. This new capability will leverage NETL’s experience and prior investments in ammonia and hydrogen combustion, to advance atmospheric pressure industrial combustion systems for industries such as cement kilns and glass factories. The intention in coming years is to collaborate with burner manufacturers and heavy industry partners to study, develop, and validate strategies for converting existing hardware from carbon-based fuels to next-generation clean ammonia and hydrogen technologies.

May, Kristyn Johnson↗

DOE OSTI2026

2024 Bioenergy Industry Status Report

This report provides a snapshot of the bioenergy industry status at the end of 2024. The report compliments other annual market reports from the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) offices and is supported by DOE'sOffice of Critical Minerals and Energy Innovation's Alternative Fuels and Feedstocks Office. The 2024 Bioenergy Industry Status Report focuses on past year data covering multiple dimensions of the bioenergy industry and does not attempt to make future market projections. There report covers production, consumption, plants, trade, and end-use for all biofuels, biopower, and biobased products where data is available. The report provides a balanced and unbiased assessment of the industry and associated markets. It is openly available to the public and is intended to complement other industry reports with a focus on DOE stakeholder needs.

09 BIOMASS FUELS↗

DOE OSTI2020

Data-driven model construction for industrial asset decision boundary classification

In some embodiments, a system model construction platform may receive, from a system node data store, system node data associated with an industrial asset. The system model construction platform may automatically construct a data-driven, dynamic system model for the industrial asset based on the received system node data. A synthetic attack platform may then inject at least one synthetic attack into the data-driven, dynamic system model to create, for each of a plurality of monitoring nodes, a series of synthetic attack monitoring node values over time that represent simulated attacked operation of the industrial asset. The synthetic attack platform may store, in a synthetic attack space data source, the series of synthetic attack monitoring node values over time that represent simulated attacked operation of the industrial asset. This information may then be used, for example, along with normal operational data to construct a threat detection model for the industrial asset.

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING↗

DOE OSTI2022

Industrial Load Flexibility, the U.S. Power Grid and Ammonia

A variable renewable power grid is a new technological regime that involves real time harvesting and low-cost availability of energy resources coupled with storage to meet additional needs. Decarbonization through electrification of end uses formerly met by combustion processes will be a concurrent trend. Taken together, these two changes may make flexibility on the demand side more valuable to the grid and to industrial users. Industry accounted for 26% of US power demand in 2021. Traditionally, industrial processes for producing ammonia and other basic materials have been optimized for a system based on fossil resources, where energy can be called upon according to needs. Large capital expenditures as well as safety considerations have favored plants running at steady state at close to their maximum capacity. It is possible, however, that the renewable energy transition will offer opportunities to sectors that can operate in a more flexible manner. Innovations that make use of flexibility to enhance their business model to move forward, individuals and groups active in their development, use and regulation, together with institutions and infrastructures, can be considered as a technological innovation system (TIS). Beyond economic and technical factors on their own, the TIS is an important analysis framework for studying the development and diffusion of technologies. This work attempts to map the TIS of flexible industrial loads and their interaction with electric power in the US, with a particular focus on ammonia as a case study. We have conducted interviews with stakeholders involved in ammonia projects, working in system operators, trade groups, regulators and utilities. We assess to what extent a technological innovation system is functioning and document characteristics that allow industries to operate flexibly.

ammonia↗

DOE OSTI2023

Industrial Requirements Status Report and Down-Select of Candidate Technologies

The report discusses the potential for implementing Integrated Energy Systems (IES) using advanced nuclear reactors to provide thermal and electrical energy to carbon-emitting industries while reducing their carbon footprint. Nine different industries were reviewed to determine their decarbonization potential, how nuclear power can fit in, and the carbon footprint of each. The report also identifies specific integration points and streams for most processes, including temperature and pressure requirements of integrating nuclear power with industrial processes. The report also provides insights on advanced nuclear reactors and their potential for us in IES for decarbonization. The target audience for the report is broad, but mainly addressed to the industry leads and nuclear reactor developers. The report recommends that in the short term, a few processes should be identified to continue research and investigation so that front end engineering design work can provide technical analysis for integrating nuclear heat and replacing existing carbon-emitting thermal sources. The work emphasized the significant decarbonization opportunity across each of the technologies looked at as well as how novel and useful nuclear integration is to reduce the environmental impact of these significant industries.

02 PETROLEUM↗

DOE OSTI2024

Graduating Sustainable Industrial Decarbonization Solutions from the Laboratory to Real-World Deployments

Accelerating innovation and integration of industrial decarbonization technology solutions is crucial for achieving industry-wide net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets. This can be accomplished in various ways through increased utilization of low-embodied carbon materials and the adoption of advanced manufacturing techniques in construction practices. At the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), we facilitate dialogue and action across all sectors to uncover industry needs to inform innovation, and explore ways we can help with implementation of emerging solutions in the real world. As an applied laboratory, NREL sits between academia and industry to fully bridge the gap from foundational science research to examining the feasibility of market applications. Integration of innovative technologies and solutions that are efficient, resilient, and grid-interactive will play a pivotal role in supporting a clean energy future. However, it is imperative that these solutions prioritize equitable outcomes, addressing the challenges faced by all communities. By embracing decarbonization, the construction industry can revolutionize itself, promoting sustainability, reducing carbon emissions, conserving resources, while enhancing performance and durability - all major steps toward a greener and more sustainable future.

cement↗

DOE OSTI2024

IMAGINE BioSecurity: Mesocosm-Based Methods to Evaluate Biocontainment Strategies and Impact of Industrial Microbes Upon Native Ecosystems

Project Goals: The Integrative Modeling and Genome-scale Engineering for Biosystems Security (IMAGINE BioSecurity) SFA project seeks to establish an understanding of the behavior of engineered microbes in controlled versus environmental conditions to predictively devise new strategies for responding to biological escape. To this end, the IMAGINE Team has established a plant-soil mesocosm platform to track and quantify the fate of industrial microbes in environmental systems and assess the efficacy of biocontainment constraints upon genetically engineered microbe escape frequency and the impact of industrial microbes upon native ecological microbiomes. Abstract Text: Genetically modified industrial production microbes and their associated bioproducts have emerged as an integral component of a sustainable bioeconomy. However, the rapid development of these innovative technologies raises biosecurity concerns, namely, the risk of environmental escape. Thus, the realization of a bioeconomy hinges not only on the development and deployment of microbial production hosts, but also on the development of secure biosystems and biocontainment designs. Current laboratory-based biocontainment testing systems do not accurately reflect complexities found in natural environments, necessitating an environmentally relevant analysis pipeline that allows for the detection of rare escapees, the effect of associated bio-products, and the impact on native ecologies. To this end, we have developed an approach that utilizes soil mesocosms and integrated systems analyses to evaluate the efficacy of novel biocontainment strategies and to assess the impact of production systems upon terrestrial microbiome dynamics. We demonstrate the utility of this approach by modeling a contamination with industrial microbial chasses versus their biocontained counterparts. Here we demonstrate the broad utility of this system by highlighting findings from both strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that are contained with an inducible toxin anti-toxin system, and stains of Escherichia coli that are contained via genomic recoding. The resultant data demonstrate that this system has broad utility across diverse microbial chassis and biocontainment strategies, enables us to track the fate of our contaminating microbe with high sensitivity in the soil, as well as monitor broader impacts of the perturbation on the underlying soil system. The findings presented here support the use of this mesocosm-based approach to assess the environmental impact of industrial microbes and to validate biocontainment strategies.

BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES,INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYS↗

DOE OSTI2024

Economic and Jobs Impacts of Point-Source Carbon Capture in Cement Industry – Case Study

The cement industry accounts for an estimated 8% of global CO2 emissions, which surpasses that of the entire aviation sector. In contrast with other industries, where CO2 emissions can be drastically reduced via electrification or fuels substitution, cement production releases CO2 as part of its process, during the calcination of carbonates to yield oxides. Thus, point-source carbon capture has become a key technology in the cement industry’s decarbonization. Apart from the expected environmental benefits, point-source carbon capture in the cement industry can yield important economic benefits and create jobs. The objective of this study was to perform a preliminary assessment of the economic and workforce impacts associated with the construction and operation of a point-source carbon capture retrofit of an existing cement production facility, using as a basis the data from a front-end engineering design (FEED) study to install a 3.9 million metric tons per year (Mtpy) CO2 capture facility at Holcim Ste Genevieve cement plant in Missouri, United States of America. The advanced carbon capture technology used in this FEED study was Air Liquide’s Cryocap™ FG carbon capture technology. The study evaluated the direct, indirect, and induced economic impacts of the construction, operation, and maintenance activities of the project over its lifespan. It also covered how the project will generate new jobs, their nature, and quantity, along with strategies to prepare the workforce. To perform this study, construction, operation, and maintenance cost estimates, as well as construction and operation staffing plans from the FEED study were input into IMPLAN version 7.5 software, licensed by IMPLAN Group LLC (Huntersville, VC), to predict the direct, indirect and induced economic impacts of the project using industry multipliers from the software. Additionally, recruitment strategies were developed for hiring individuals who belong to groups that are historically underserved or underrepresented, as well as anticipated recruitment of workers from the local community (whether training will be required or if the skills are associated with an existing labor force). The analysis estimated that the construction and operation of the carbon capture at Holcim Ste. Genevive will result in over 24 thousand work-years of job opportunities, close to USD 10 billion of economic impacts, including over USD 460 million of tax revenue. These results encompass the direct, indirect, and induced effects. A strategy to maximize hiring from the project and neighboring counties was developed, leveraging training agreements with local trade groups and universities. The result of this study can be used for a strategic preliminary assessment of the potential regional economic and job impacts of retrofitting existing cement plants with point source carbon systems, and its methodology can be replicated to individual projects to aid in planning and workforce development.

01 COAL, LIGNITE, AND PEAT↗

DOE OSTI2025

What Rocks and What's Not So Hot: U.S. Industry Perception of Geothermal Tax Credits

Nationwide, four U.S. federal tax credits promote the adoption of geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) and geothermal power plants and were recently updated with enactment of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).1 However, uptake of these geothermal tax credits has lagged behind other eligible technologies.2 With the support of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Geother- mal Technologies Office, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) engaged with the geothermal industry to determine: 1) how the industry will use the tax credits, 2) remaining challenges to utilizing tax credits, and 3) suggestions on solutions that could help accelerate tax credit uptake. Insights were obtained through two industry question- naires (59 responses)3 and 21 interviews with representatives from geothermal industry groups, project developers, com- ponent manufacturers, and financiers, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. This article synthesizes the industry's perception of these tax credits, i.e., Section 25D (residential GHP), Section 48 (commer- cial GHP), Section 48E (investment tax credit [ITC] for electricity), and Section 45Y (production tax credit [PTC] for electricity).

15 GEOTHERMAL ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2026

Optimizing Energy Use in Pulp & Paper with DOE’s Energy Intensive Industries Resources

The U.S. pulp and paper industry is the third-largest energy consumer in manufacturing, accounting for roughly 10% of sector energy use. Improving energy efficiency reduces operating costs and strengthens competitiveness. To support this effort, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), through Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), launched the Energy Intensive Industries (EII) Initiative. A two-year pilot across 45 industrial sites identified more than 4 trillion Btu/year in potential energy savings. This presentation outlines plans for a follow-up technical assistance program tailored to pulp and paper mills. Available resources include a cost-savings scoping tool, implementation planning guidance, and technical support for applying advanced methods such as Pinch Analysis for integrated process-utilities optimization. The session introduces key Pinch Analysis principles and highlights case studies demonstrating measurable improvements. ORNL also seeks industry feedback on barriers to efficiency improvements, including technology gaps and resource needs. DOE’s broader objective is to accelerate productivity and economic competitiveness across U.S. energy-intensive industries.

Kamath, Dipti [ORNL] (ORCID:0000000278739994)↗

DOE OSTI2024

The role of AI in detecting and mitigating human errors in safety-critical industries: A review

For safety-critical industries, human error (HE) presents continual risks to system productivity, reliability and safety. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) methods have emerged as promising approaches to understand, categorize and mitigate the risk of HE in safety-critical industries. Furthermore, this review offers an examination of the current landscape regarding the utilization of AI/ML with regards to HE in safety-critical industries, categorizing literature into descriptive modeling, predictive modeling, prescriptive modeling, and generative modeling techniques. Additionally, the review aims to provide insights regarding themes in literature, challenges, and future research directions. Findings of the review suggest that AI/ML methods can prove useful in addressing the HE problem across safety-critical industries.

42 ENGINEERING↗

DOE OSTI2025

Automated Fire Detection for Industrial Settings with Pretrained Convolutional Networks

Early fire detection in industrial environments is critical to preventing equipment damage, personal injury, and operational disruptions. Traditional smoke detectors, while effective, often experience delays due to the time required for smoke to reach sensors, allowing fires to spread. Manual fire watch operations and human surveillance of camera feeds are resource-intensive and prone to human error. To address these challenges, this paper explores the application of convolutional neural networks for automated fire detection, specifically in industrial settings. By leveraging 11 different pre-trained machine vision models from TensorFlow and enhancing them with transfer learning on a custom-built industrial fire dataset, we optimized fire detection performance. Here, we analyzed each machine vision model architecture in terms of its depth, width, and input image resolution, considering both resource requirements and detection accuracy. We further explored the option of combining multiple models into an ensemble classifier to evaluate whether the performance improvements could justify the much greater computational complexity and other practical impacts. A cost-benefit analysis is presented to evaluate the trade-offs between performance and computational expense. Our findings identify that EfficientNetV2L, specifically tailored for industrial applications, provides the optimal balance between costs involved in training and using the model versus the overall fire detection performance. Additionally, we present a qualitative analysis of model performance using the technique of gradient-based class activation mapping to provide explainability by visualizing model decisions.

artificial intelligence↗

DOE OSTI2022

Dynamic optimization with flexible heat integration of a solar parabolic trough collector plant with thermal energy storage used for industrial process heat

There is an increasing need to reduce fossil fuel consumption used for industrial process heat to slow the effects of climate change. Using solar thermal heat is a viable way to replace fossil fuel use, but solar industrial process heat plants have limited implementation due to large upfront costs and inefficiencies from the inherent variability from solar energy. Having more flexible and optimized control over these plants can enable them to be more efficient. Here in this work, a solar industrial process heat plant with thermal energy storage that can flexibly collect and deliver heat to two industrial processes (flexible heat integration) is dynamically modeled with control setpoints found by a dynamic optimization method. The optimized case can increase the solar efficiency of the plant by 7.5% on average relative to a base case. The results show that it is best to collect heat at lower temperatures for all but ideal solar conditions, only medium to high quality heat should be stored in large quantities, and exchanging heat with a lower temperature heat sink is generally more efficient. The optimized case is able to reduce the levelized cost of heat of the plant to $31.83/MWh th compared to a base case value of $34.10/MWh th . The optimized case can reduce emissions by 22.2% compared to a plant which uses only natural gas. This work shows that dynamic optimization with flexible heat integration can be a cost-effective way to increase efficiency so that more of these types of plants can be implemented.

14 SOLAR ENERGY↗

DOE OSTI2022

The pursuit of net-positive sustainability for industrial decarbonization with hybrid energy systems

We report signatories of the Paris Agreement are set to miss their climate targets. The net-zero pledges announced to date across many countries and private industries are insufficient to achieve carbon neutrality, which requires implementation of far-reaching and significantly scaled-up climate-positive actions. All technology options that pertain to deep decarbonization and carbon removal must be part of the mitigation portfolio. Transformative action plans must be established in which every individual/organization around the globe is an actor of changes in relation to net-zero goals. Such plans must involve governmental policy support but also encourage voluntary efforts to boost innovations, investments, initiatives, and behavioral changes. Recognition of these efforts is made quantifiable with the concepts of carbon handprint and net positivity. This paper presents a carbon handprint perspective on characterizing the environmental benefits of hybrid energy systems (HESs)—a widely applicable solution to cleaner production leveraging the capabilities of a portfolio of low-carbon energy sources—that provide heat and electricity to industrial processes. First, the carbon handprint and net positivity concepts and their calculation approach are introduced. The state of the art of HES-enabled industrial cogeneration is then surveyed, and the greenhouse gas emission intensities of different energy sources that power HESs are compared. Next, drawing on a case study about a US chemical facility's voluntary initiative to explore replacing its fossil fuel–based cogeneration infrastructure with a clean energy–generated HES, several technically viable scenarios are evaluated—especially those with small modular nuclear reactors—to illustrate how the positive-thinking handprint approach helps encourage and inform the search for widespread influence pathways in pursuit of net-positive sustainability. Finally, current knowledge gaps in the case study are identified, and opportunities to scale up the proposed handprint-based analysis are outlined with consideration of an expanded role of HESs in fulfilling climate objectives.It is envisioned that like-minded decision makers in the industry sector and beyond will adopt this perspective and act synergistically to enhance their environmental stewardship through voluntary actions and make greater contributions to the planet's climate future.

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATI↗