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This study contributed to the environmental research by analyzing the nexus between innovation in climate change mitigation technologies and carbon dioxide emissions in the United States, with the gross domestic product per capita, international collaboration in green technology development, renewable energy consumption, the labor force, and trade openness as control variables from 1990Q1 to 2018Q4. First, the results suggested that renewable energy consumption, innovation in climate change mitigation technologies, and international collaboration in green technology development are significant mitigating and determining factors for carbon dioxide emissions. Second, the findings also indicated that trade openness and gross domestic product per capita were positively associated with carbon dioxide emissions. Third, the Granger causality test results validated the presence of a bidirectional nexus between innovation in climate change mitigation technologies and carbon dioxide emissions, renewable energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, and international collaboration in green technology development and carbon dioxide emissions. Fourth, the results validated a one-way causality between gross domestic product per capita and carbon dioxide emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • A novel approach to study sector-level potential industrial heat pump applications. • The potential energy savings by electrifying process heat are 325 PJ p.a. in 2050. • The potential CO 2 savings by electrifying process heat are 31 Mt p.a. in 2050. • Electrified process heat supply can already abate 10 Mt of CO 2 p.a. in 2021. • The costs are high due to the large disparity between electricity and fuel prices. Decarbonization of the industrial process heat supply through electrification could contribute significantly to climate change mitigation efforts. In the U.S. industry, thermal processes accounted for more than two-thirds of the total final energy demand in 2021. Cross-cutting electrification technologies like industrial heat pumps are suitable for the process heat supply to several industrial unit operations in a sustainable way while also improving overall energy efficiency. This study employs a bottom-up approach to investigate the techno-enviro-economic potentials of deploying high-temperature and steam-generating heat pumps in the major U.S. food manufacturing sectors in different timeframes. The results show that the annual technical potential energy and CO 2 savings by electrifying process heat supply are 325 PJ (or approximately 20% of the total final energy demand in U.S. food manufacturing) and 31 MtCO 2 (equivalent to the annual CO 2 emissions from over 6 million cars in the U.S.) in 2050, respectively; however, these incur additional costs in each sector. Although there may be individual cost-effective opportunities for electrifying heat supply in specific industrial sites, the overall costs are estimated to be high in the food sectors due to the large disparity between electricity and natural gas prices and low heat source temperatures. To overcome the identified techno-economic barriers, comprehensive action plans for different stakeholders are needed. This study provides novel insights that should inform policymakers' and executives' decisions about the electrification of the current and future U.S. industrial heat supply in relevant industrial sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Pursuing a zero-carbon US electricity system would incur additional cost. • The use of non-renewable low-carbon resources reduces the additional cost. • Negative emission technologies show economic advantage to mitigate the last few percent CO 2 from the US electricity system. Decarbonizing the electricity system to zero-carbon emission is crucial for climate change mitigation. Previous studies have shown that such a transition in the United States (U.S.) may lead to higher system cost compared to a business-as-usual case, but it is not well-known how the cost of electricity generation varies at sub-regional level under the transition, and studies have rarely evaluated the trade-off between the cost and avoided climate damages, as well as the potential roles of negative emission technologies (NETs) in the electricity decarbonization. Here, we present a regionally resolved national model to quantify the cost of decarbonizing the U.S. electricity system under a set of possible scenarios. The results show that, compared to the reference scenario without a decarbonization policy, reaching zero CO 2 emission by 2050 would incur, depending on the scenarios, 335–494 billion USD additional cost to the U.S. electric power sector during 2020–2050. The regional costs of electricity generation ranges from 2.4 to 4.7 cent/kWh, largely due to the generation profiles and renewable resources availability of those regions. The additional costs can be translated to an average CO 2 abatement cost of 29–59 USD/metric ton CO 2 (with 2%–7% discount rates), which are comparable to the social cost of carbon in the literature at around 4% discount rate. The results also show that the cost of mitigating the last few percent CO 2 emission from the U.S. electricity system may exceed the costs of NETs, indicating an opportunity for NETs to contribute to electricity decarbonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]