Dow Inc. CEO promotes clean energy initiatives at Detroit Economic Club forum

Detroit — Dow Inc. CEO Jim Fitterling shared the Midland company's strategies focusing on decarbonization and energy efficiency Wednesday during a Detroit Economic Club luncheon at MotorCity Casino.

Dow, a global company that produces plastics, polyurethanes and silicones, merged with DuPont in 2017. In 2019, it spun off into three separate companies.

The company is one of its best financial situations, generating $44.6 billion in revenue last year, allowing it to invest in major projects like its Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, site that will be converted to produce hydrogen and subsequently reduce 1 million tons of carbon dioxide per year, Fitterling said.

The company aims to make plastics, specifically polyethylene, with net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by converting cracker off-gas into circular hydrogen as a clean fuel to be used in the production process. The project will grow Dow’s ethylene supply by about 15%, while decarbonizing approximately 20% of the company’s global ethylene capacity.

"The world is done with carbon emissions," Fitterling said. "You have to have a plan by 2050 to get rid of carbon emissions, and we can't afford to build anything new that has carbon emissions associated with it."

The company is building what it says will be the world’s first net-zero carbon emissions ethylene cracker complex in Canada and is partnering to be the first manufacturer to install advanced small modular nuclear technology at one of its U.S. manufacturing sites.

Fitterling says smart international policies can help the U.S. and other countries support the transition to cleaner energy and reach their climate goals. For example, a global price on carbon would allow investors to recover costs and incentivize emissions reductions, he said.

"We sometimes will incentivize people to buy a new furnace or buy a new air conditioning because it’s more energy efficient. We can do that on a industrial scale too and that has a big impact on the economy," he said.

Dow is demonstrating decarbonization at an industrial scale and also showing that sustainability is both possible and profitable, Fitterling said. On a daily basis, Dow generates 7 gigawatts of power and steam from more than 50 gas and steam turbines and boilers, while also purchasing nearly 3 gigawatts from utilities and other providers.

"We built a facility in Texas in 2017, it didn’t have any fancy carbon reduction goals to it but it was 60% lower carbon emissions than the average of my fleet just because it was using the best new technology," Fitterling said.

A major step that many organizations can take toward cleaner energy is energy efficiency: "taking old technology and replacing it with the best available new technology," Fitterling said.

"The electricity demand in the last decade has been relatively flat, maybe it's grown 1% per year, it hasn't been much ... we've got this massive growth in data and AI that's coming in and now the EIA projects that electricity demand over the next five years is going to grow by 27%. We haven't seen electricity growth in a long time.

"You've got to be able to provide 24/7 reliable power if you want manufacturing investments, if you want these data centers and if you want any any materials technology, so you want to make the things that are made overseas to come back here, they need 24/7 reliable power. Renewables are great."

mjohnson@detroitnews.com

@_myeshajohnson