PIRE: Deeply Decarbonizing Global Industrial Supply Chains: Technology, Organizational Practices, and Institutional Design

大幅减少全球工业生产产生的温室气体排放，同时限制对工人和社区的不利影响，是一项重大的社会挑战。工业部门约占全球温室气体排放量的三分之一，其中水泥、化工和塑料、钢铁和炼钢是贡献最大的三个行业。替代化石燃料作为热源的挑战使当前的脱碳过程变得复杂，并意味着劳动力需求的变化，这可能对能源社区和能源劳动力的弱势成员产生不成比例的影响。此外，工业部门产出的很大一部分是在国际上交易的，这可能使面临严格国内气候政策的生产商处于不利地位，并鼓励将生产转移到监管较少的市场。通过吸引卓越中心的学生和研究人员以及中国、德国、南非和美国的多部门、多利益相关者合作伙伴组成的广泛、多样化的网络，这一伙伴关系将利用数据科学和案例研究分析，为工业脱碳的技术和社会挑战提供创新的解决方案。这些解决方案将植根于对全球主要工业活动中心的生产地理及其相关社区的深入背景和数据驱动理解。在这一伙伴关系中形成的共同见解和全球意识将在清洁能源转型过程中支持国家健康、繁荣和福利。工业脱碳分析、基准和行动（INDABA）伙伴关系的目标是整合材料科学与工程、数据科学、经济学和决策分析方面的全球专业知识，以一种趋同的方式应对工业供应链脱碳的挑战。伙伴关系活动将中国、德国、南非和美国的研究团队聚集在一起，开发数据和分析，对区域方法进行案例研究比较，最终形成对全球机会的共同理解，以展示实现深度脱碳的技术和基础设施。具体而言，该合作伙伴关系将使用机器学习技术来阐明全球不同环境下工厂和工艺层面的工业温室气体（GHG）排放驱动因素，并开发基于使用的方法来评估工厂和地区特定的脱碳选择，考虑技术、经济和社会影响。这项研究的结果将是开发一种新的全球数据分析方法，并推进机器学习方法的发展，以检查水泥、化工和塑料、钢铁和炼钢三个行业的工业工厂的温室气体排放驱动因素。通过国际合作，伙伴关系的参与者将研究如何根据国家、地区和工厂的具体情况最有效地定制或扩大工业脱碳投资。这一伙伴关系将通过新课程、政策备忘录和出版物对不同的受众进行教育，进一步加速工业脱碳。这些活动将共同为技术示范和协调机构设计奠定基础，以推进减缓气候变化的全球努力。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Drastically reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from industrial production worldwide while limiting adverse impacts on workers and communities is a major societal challenge. The industrial sector accounts for around one-third of global GHG emissions, with cement, chemicals and plastics, and iron and steelmaking being the three largest contributing industries. Decarbonizing current processes is complicated by the challenge of replacing fossil fuels as a heat source and implies changes in labor requirements, which could disproportionately impact energy communities and vulnerable members of the energy workforce. Furthermore, a large share of industrial sector output is traded internationally, potentially disadvantaging producers that face stringent domestic climate policies and encouraging relocation of production to less regulated markets. By engaging students and researchers at centers of excellence and a broad, diverse network of multi-sector, multi-stakeholder partners in China, Germany, South Africa, and the United States, this partnership will use data science and case study analysis to generate innovative solutions to the technological and societal challenges of industrial decarbonization. These solutions will be rooted in a deep contextual and data-driven understanding of production geographies and their connected communities in major centers of industrial activity worldwide. The shared insights and global awareness developed in this partnership will support national health, prosperity, and welfare in a clean energy transition. The goal of the Industrial Decarbonization Analysis, Benchmarking, and Action (INDABA) partnership is to integrate global expertise in materials science and engineering, data science, economics, and decision analysis in a convergence approach to address the challenge of decarbonizing industrial supply chains. Partnership activities bring together research teams in China, Germany, South Africa, and the United States to develop data and analysis, to conduct case study comparisons of regional approaches, and ultimately to form a shared understanding of global opportunities to demonstrate technologies and infrastructure to enable deep decarbonization. Specifically, the partnership will use machine learning techniques to illuminate drivers of industrial greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the plant and process level in diverse global settings and develop use-inspired approaches to evaluate plant- and region-specific options for decarbonization considering technical, economic, and societal impacts. The outcome of this research will be the development of a novel global dataverse and the advancement of machine learning approaches to examine GHG emissions drivers for industrial plants in three sectors, cement, chemicals and plastics, and iron and steelmaking. Through international collaboration, participants in the partnership will examine how industrial decarbonization investments can be most effectively customized or scaled within country-, region-, and plant-specific contexts. This partnership will further accelerate industrial decarbonization by educating diverse audiences via new curriculum, policy memos, and publications. Together these activities will lay the foundation for technology demonstrations and coordinated institutional design to advance global efforts to mitigate climate change.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.