Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm last week held a virtual roundtable discussion with representatives of several manufacturing companies to emphasize the role of the industrial sector in reaching the Biden administration’s decarbonization goals.

“We are totally serious about slashing the carbon footprint of the industrial sector, and of course creating great-paying jobs while we are at it,” Granholm said, adding that the Department of Energy had declared the last week of July the “Future of Manufacturing Week.”

Those attending the discussion July 27 included a steelmaker, an automaker and an auto parts maker, who joined with directors of manufacturing and energy-efficiency organizations created by previous administrations. DOE has run such programs at least since the Obama administration to help U.S. manufacturing become more efficient. And under President Biden, that will continue with decarbonization and job creation efforts now added.

The question has been how to fund the new initiatives.

Granholm predicted that the bipartisan infrastructure bill released Sunday and a yet-to-be-finalized budget bill would be the first steps to creating 2 million new jobs every year for the next decade. (See related story, Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill Offers Funding for Grid, EVs, Cybersecurity.)

Building electric cars and the batteries that will go into them are high on the administration’s list of what must become American-dominated industries, Granholm reminded participants.

“We’re talking billions of dollars to win the global market for car 2.0, which is of course the electric vehicle, and [to build] hundreds of thousands of charging stations, and spurring domestic supply chains for batteries and electric vehicles.

“We’re talking about the extension of the 48C manufacturing tax credit to supply clean energy projects with American-made parts and equipment,” she said in reference to the administration’s tax proposals for fiscal year 2022.

“The point to passing both of these bills [is to] retool and invest in American manufacturers to win the 21st century,” Granholm said. “And there’s a big prize to be won, because the global market for clean technologies is projected to be $23 trillion. That’s with a ‘T.’”

Also joining was U.S. Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who has introduced legislation to require the Commerce Department to establish a task force to identify manufacturing supply chain vulnerabilities.

Manufacturing is “not always what people think it is: dirty, dark and dangerous,” Stevens said. “It’s high-concept, innovative, hard work, certainly, by solving complicated problems; complex supply chains that not only span our country but, in some realities, the world, especially as the world demands our best-in-class products.”

“We know that the global economy is already transitioning to clean energy,” said Jane Flegal, senior director for industrial emissions at the White House Council on Environmental Quality. “The big question is whether those jobs and supply chains are here in the United States or somewhere else. There’s no reason those supply chains can’t be clean and can’t be in the U.S. providing jobs and opportunities for American workers across the country.”

While the Biden administration’s “whole of government” approach to cutting carbon emissions directs DOE and other federal agencies to work in tandem with business and industry to develop more efficient and cleaner technologies, the roots of the idea reach back at least to the Obama administration and the 2014 creation of Manufacturing USA, a public-private collaboration focused on modernizing the nation’s manufacturing.

Manufacturing USA evolved into 16 more focused nonprofit institutes, which together comprise the Clean Energy Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute. The group’s director, John Dyck, explained that the focus of every program in Manufacturing USA is “to bring our collective and diverse ecosystems to bear” on manufacturing, industrial practices and supply chain problems “through public-private partnerships.”

“That means we can very quickly reach into our ecosystems, the manufacturers, the machine builders, the software vendors and, of course, academia, and do this across industry boundaries, reaching not just the large enterprises, but the small and medium manufacturers as well, and ensure that we have the most diverse and inclusive set of perspectives at the table as we look to solve problems and create new value,” he said.

The three manufacturers that have participated in previously initiated and ongoing DOE energy-efficiency programs joined the webinar to recount their successes. Though Biden frequently mentions “good union jobs” when talking about his “Build Back Better” programs to fight climate change and create a larger middle class, none of the three companies — Nucor Steel, Nissan North America and KYB Americas — are unionized. That was not mentioned.

Nissan’s Mike Clemmer, director of director of corporate and manufacturing facilities and environmental engineering, said his company is committed to a continuing relationship with DOE.

“Our business is extremely competitive. And our cost controls are obviously imperative. But we also have goals and the responsibility to improve our sustainability. Achieving our targets will require implementation of new and/or different technologies outside of our traditional processes,” Clemmer said.

He said the company is currently running a pilot efficiency program developed through a federally initiated public-private pilot program. The pilot aims to reduce energy costs for cooling of production line mechanical systems at an assembly plant in Mississippi.

Granholm did note that whatever Nissan learns from its participation will be shared with other companies, including automakers. “We need to share information with one another about best practices and learn from one another about how to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

KYB Americas, a subsidiary of Tokyo-based KYB, which manufactures parts for vehicles, has since 2016 been part of a DOE consulting program designed to help manufacturers increase efficiency. The Industrial Assessment Centers (IAC), located at 35 universities, offer energy-efficiency assessments to manufacturers.

Charlie Manzione, head of environmental services at KYB’s Franklin, Ind., plant, enthusiastically recounted an IAC team of seven engineers who arrived in 2016, examined operations for two days and came up with 11 recommendations to reduce the plant’s “energy intensity.”

“Since 2016 we have been reporting on reduction of our intensity to the DOE every year, and I can happily say we have reduced intensity 15%,” he said. The goal is 25% by 2023, he said.

“Now we’re looking at things like renewables, such as solar and/or wind … as well as other efficiency improvements, but we do want the IAC again; we’d like to have them come back,” Manzione said.

Nucor CEO Leon Topalian did not mention his company’s involvement in any government-initiated efficiency programs but did say that it already meets the standards of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change. Its mini mill operations use electric arc furnaces to make steel from scrap rather than less efficient traditional blast furnaces that make steel from iron.

“And we’re making further investments; we’re going to be cleaner; we’re going to continue our leadership position … to ensure the cleanest steels are producing the next green economy that will be built,” he said.

Biden’s goal of 30 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 “represents about 7 million tons of steel,” Topalian said.

“Where that steel comes from is vitally important. We do not need to bring those steels in from other countries that are three, four or five times dirtier than what we can produce here.”