A Manufacturer's Take on Inflation Reduction Act Climate Provisions

To start, I’d like to say that this article is not intended to be political. I feel there are certain issues that transcend politics, and regardless of where you may fall on the political spectrum, some challenges can’t be met without cooperation. And I think one such challenge is ensuring our environment is healthy and sustainable for future generations.

Earlier this month, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Biden on August 16^th. The legislation, which is designed to – among other goals – help relieve Americans of rising healthcare, energy, and consumer costs, also includes $386 billion aimed at combatting climate change at several levels. As the leader of a manufacturing company, I’m excited to see that this investment in our climate is also an investment in American jobs, innovation, and engineering excellence.

The entire bill can be found here but according to the White House, these funds – the single largest climate investment in US history – will be allocated to the following initiatives[1]:

• $161B in clean electricity tax credits
• $40B to address air pollution, hazardous materials, transportation, and infrastructure
• $37B in individual clean energy incentives
• $37B in clean manufacturing tax credits
• $36B in clean fuel and vehicle tax credits
• $35B for conservation, rural development, and forestry
• $27B for building efficiency, electrification, transmission, industrial, DOE grants, and loans
• $14B for miscellaneous energy and climate spending

Particularly exciting for Super Radiator are the investments in decarbonization and efficiency improvement measures. We love building custom-engineered heat transfer equipment for applications like pollution abatement, carbon capture, and economization and would love the opportunity to help even more customers run cleaner and more efficiently.

I think, too, that these initiatives serve as an excellent incentive for the HVAC-R industry to explore new refrigerant blends that are engineered specifically with environmental harm reduction in mind. And we’re excited for opportunities to help customers better understand the unique performance characteristics of these multi-part “next generation” refrigerants. In fact, last year, we completed construction of a new tube-side heat transfer lab designed with blends in mind. We pair data from this lab with airside data from our wind tunnel test lab to generate performance data for both the fluid side and air side of our heat exchangers, helping customers know what to expect out of their entire coil.

I’m also looking forward to working with our electric utility customers to innovate on new ways to make their power generation facilities more economical and environmentally friendly. It will be exciting to see how these initiatives are put into practice over the coming years.

We’re an engineering company at heart, and I feel it’s our discipline’s responsibility to learn from our experiences and meet opportunities to upset convention with enthusiasm and purpose. Our planet is all we have. Without a healthy, livable environment in the future, we’ll lose the innate human propensity to think, make, and improve. I view the climate provisions in the Inflation Reduction Act as a tremendous opportunity to continue the effort to improve the place where we live. By incentivizing individuals and manufacturers to make choices that benefit our environment, I’m hopeful that this law can be the start of an excellent future where renewable energy, scientific innovation and the manufacturing sector can all work together toward the same goal.

Over the next few months, we’ll be publishing a series of articles about the role heat transfer supports various renewable energy technologies and the role it plays in other initiatives outlined in the Inflation Reduction Act. The manufacturing sector has a long history of supporting American ingenuity, and I’m optimistic that these climate measures will help continue that tradition.

If you're interested in how Super Radiator Coils can help your operation in pollution abatement, decarbonization, efficiency improvements, or other climate-related measures that require heat transfer equipment, get in touch with us. We'll work with you to understand your goals and engineer a plan to get you there. 

Don’t get left out in the cold when it comes to heat transfer information. To stay up to date on a variety of topics on the subject, subscribe to The Super Blog, our technical blog, Doctor's Orders, and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.

[1] https://www.crfb.org/blogs/whats-inflation-reduction-act