How RMI and the Mission Possible Partnership are accelerating cleaner shipping, trucking, aviation and more in the Golden State.
California is a national leader in climate policy with state mandates to achieve net zero emissions by 2045. Yet, California is the third largest industrial emitter in the nation, with the state’s refineries, trucks, airports, ports and other industries responsible for 80 million metric tons of CO2 in 2022 or 6% of total industrial emissions in the United States.
Meeting our collective global climate goals requires building more than 700 net-zero industrial projects and purchasing 7 million zero-emissions trucks by 2030. Most of these projects will occur in regional industrial hubs in places like California where the physical, social, regulatory, and economic infrastructure is in place to support rapid scale up.
That’s why RMI and the Mission Possible Partnership, in collaboration with the Bezos Earth Fund, are working to create a clean industrial hub in California to help advance heavy transportation and port decarbonization, low-emissions cement production, green hydrogen, and industrial electrification. Investments to transition and build new, clean facilities and vehicles will reduce pollution and help the state reach its climate policy targets while creating a green economy for California workers.
California can lead the clean energy transition through its strong environmental regulations and world-leading customer base for sustainable products. In fact, California has the largest state economy in the United States and contributes 14% to the United States’ GDP.
While the state might be known for tech, film, and recreation, its industrial sector is a large part of its economy. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach alone support 3 million jobs nationally and manufacturing contributes an additional 11% to California’s GDP. California’s industrial sector also brings significant pollution. Together, industry and heavy transport sectors like trucking, shipping, and aviation, contribute nearly 30% of all emissions in the state.
To support a sustainable future, California is leading on policy to unlock investments in clean fuels and industrial decarbonization. California has a net-zero emissions target by 2045, supported by key legislation for zero emissions vehicles, a low-carbon fuel standard, cap-and-trade program, and a Buy Clean Act. Combined with federal, state, and local funding for new and retrofitted facilities, these policies are catalyzing a wave of project announcements statewide. Between 2022 and 2024, more than 22 commercial scale decarbonization projects were announced in California across five sectors, including trucking, aviation, and shipping.
To date, clean industrial projects in California have mobilized more than $14 billion in public and private funding. This includes:
Even with the tremendous progress stakeholders have made in California to advance decarbonization projects, significant work remains to transition the state’s industries to net-zero by 2045.
Clean industrial hubs bring together key stakeholders, such as project developers, policy makers, financial institutions, and community-based organizations to support regional clusters of industrial decarbonization projects.
In California, RMI and the Mission Possible Partnership work on accelerating low-carbon solutions for industry and heavy transport. We provide technical assistance to first-of-a-kind (FOAK) decarbonization projects and for the ecosystem of policy, finance, infrastructure, and community engagement needed for success.
By 2035, all drayage trucks at California ports must be zero-emissions, and by 2045, all truck sales in California must be zero-emissions vehicles. We supported the transition to zero-emissions trucking by evaluating the total cost of ownership of electric and hydrogen trucks, working with ports and local governments to increase financial incentives to reduce the cost premium of purchasing zero-emissions trucks, and identified pathways to scale up charging infrastructure for electric trucks.
Cement plants in California must reduce emissions by 40% by 2035 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2045. Just 7 cement plants in California emitted 7 million mt CO2e in 2023. We identified pathways for two clinker facilities to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045 through integrated site decarbonization utilizing three key levers: alternative fuels, supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs), and carbon capture and storage (CCS). We then helped the company identify public funding opportunities to offset the cost premium.
Sustainable aviation fuel can help reduce aviation emissions by between 70 and 90 percent relative to conventional jet fuel. California’s legacy of refining presents an opportunity to produce SAF and other low-carbon fuels. We evaluated production pathways including HEFA (hydroprocessed esters and fatty acids) and PtL (power-to-liquids) for two different SAF producers and identified cost-effective ways to reduce carbon intensity. We worked with financial institutions to identify solutions to common financing barriers for SAF projects.
Decarbonizing ports and shipping are essential to meet California’s climate goals and maintain economic competitiveness. We calculated the total cost of ownership for zero-emissions cargo handling equipment and costs for terminal operators at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to fully convert their equipment to zero-emissions by 2030. Additionally, we analyzed zero-emissions fuel supply options for ports and the feasibility of green shipping corridors.
Hydrogen is an essential lever for industrial decarbonization in California. We analyzed the costs, technology readiness, and public funding available for two green hydrogen producers in California.
Industrial electrification is essential for decarbonizing California’s existing industries and to support emerging industries. We evaluated state and federal incentives for industrial electrification projects and the potential to scale thermal heat batteries to ~50 facilities in California.
Policy support and public funding accelerate the transition to California’s clean industrial future by holding companies to cleaner standards and providing critical funding needed to make investments in clean industrial facilities today. We created the Decarbonizing Industry Resource Tool (DIRT) to help project developers, industrial companies, and investors discover the state and federal financial incentives that may apply to their industry and heavy transport projects. Through this work, we identified solutions to barriers to siting and permitting truck charging depots and industrial projects in California.
Private capital is necessary to bring projects from planning to final investment decision and ultimately construction, creating tipping points for sector-wide change and making clean the new normal. In California, we convened financial institutions including banks, private equity, and other investors to identify solutions to bankability challenges for green hydrogen and sustainable aviation fuel. We developed the Industrial Decarbonization Investor database which catalogues more than 200 institutions that have expressed interest in and finalized transactions related to industrial decarbonization.
Midstream infrastructure — including electric transmission lines, hydrogen pipelines, and energy storage — is essential for clean energy to reach industrial facilities. We evaluated the energy supply and midstream infrastructure needed for California’s industrial sector to achieve net-zero emissions by 2045.
Decarbonization cannot happen without equitable and inclusive two-way community engagement. We held workshops for project developers to develop community engagement strategies and learn best practices for developing Community Benefits Plans and Community Benefits Agreements. We interviewed members of community-based organizations, labor groups, and other NGOs about effective practices, challenges, and opportunities for improvement in implementing Community Benefit Plans.
RMI and the Mission Possible Partnership are developing resources, including reports, videos, and articles, to support project developers, policymakers, financial institutions, and community-based organizations to advance industrial decarbonization projects in California and beyond.
Last month on Earth Day, RMI, Mission Possible Partnership, and the Bezos Earth Fund gathered project developers, local policy makers, NGOs, and financial institutions in downtown Los Angeles to celebrate progress and take stock of the journey ahead to decarbonize industry and heavy transportation in California.
Managed charging and distributed energy resources can save fleets up to 30 percent in electricity bills while reducing the time for grid connections.
New RMI analysis explores California’s successes and challenges in its efforts to reform permitting processes for truck depots.
New data shows how fleets, utilities, local government, and charging providers can prepare the grid for increased power demand from electric trucks.
The industrial permitting process in California remains long and complicated. This memo outlines key challenges and solutions.
A recent RMI survey shows airlines, logistics service providers, and corporate customers are willing to pay a green premium for SAF and SAFc and express preference for shorter contracts and waste-based feedstock.
RMI’s webinar uncovers current trends and challenges in the industrial decarbonization space, describes our suite of resources to address some of the biggest challenges to technology implementers and explains how they can be used by project developers and startups to reach commercial deployment and final investment decision (FID) more quickly.
The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach handle nearly 40 percent of US shipping container traffic; decarbonizing the equipment that handles these containers needs to begin now.
Installing drayage truck chargers further away from ports can benefit fleets’ bottom line and operations, avoid grid bottlenecks, and reduce port congestion.
According to project finance experts, US-based sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) producers will face three main dilemmas when financing commercial-scale projects in 2024: what feedstock to use, whether to get government loan guarantees, and how to de-risk operations.
Join RMI for a webinar on Providing Truck Charging Solutions in Southern California. On the webinar, you’ll hear the latest research from experts at RMI alongside real-world examples of deployment from the North American Council for Freight Efficiency (NACFE), Zeem, and BGIS.
Case studies and best practices from advising developers of the DOE’s $7 billion Regional Clean H2Hubs program, plus lessons for future clean energy projects.
RMI explores the findings of our latest report Delivering Equitable and Meaningful Community Benefits via Clean Hydrogen Hubs in this webinar.
Key Insights from US Clean Industrial Hubs
New cleantech projects across the U.S. will rely on project finance — but getting access to private capital requires checking some boxes.
