Decarbonizing Heavy Industry
June 24, 2021
In a modern irony, much of the infrastructure needed to build a low-carbon economy will be made of steel and cement, yet manufacturing them produces much of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere, says a new Brookings Institution report. Equally vexing, these industrial sources are among the most difficult to decarbonize. In Issues, Colin Cunliff proposes a research and policy agenda for addressing this and other hard-to-decarbonize sectors of the economy. Among the options, he says, carbon capture, utilization, and storage is the most promising technology for decarbonizing many industrial processes, including the production of cement and steel.