taking notes

Things to know: Beryl in the rearview, Devon Energy's big deal, and events not to miss

Hurricane Beryl's impact has shown a light on the Energy Capital of the World's energy problem — and more things to know this week. Photo via Getty Images

Editor's note: Dive headfirst into the new week with three quick things to catch up on in Houston's energy transition.

Hurricane Beryl's big impact

Hundreds of thousands of people in the Houston area likely won’t have power restored until this week, as the city swelters in the aftermath of Hurricane Beryl.

The storm slammed into Texas on July 8, knocking out power to nearly 2.7 million homes and businesses and leaving huge swaths of the region in the dark and without air conditioning in the searing summer heat.

Although repairs have restored power to nearly 1.4 million customers, the scale of the damage and slow pace of recovery has put CenterPoint Energy, which provides electricity to the nation's fourth-largest city, under mounting scrutiny over whether it was sufficiently prepared for the storm and is doing enough now to make things right.

Some frustrated residents have also questioned why a part of the country that is all too familiar with major storms has been hobbled by a Category 1 hurricane, which is the weakest kind. But a storm's wind speed, alone, doesn't determine how dangerous it can be. Click here to continue reading this article from the AP.

Big deal: Devon Energy to acquire Houston exploration, production biz in $5B deal

Devon Energy is buying Grayson Mill Energy's Williston Basin business in a cash-and-stock deal valued at $5 billion as consolidation in the oil and gas sector ramps up.

The transaction includes $3.25 billion in cash and $1.75 billion in stock.

Grayson Mill Energy, based in Houston, is an oil and gas exploration company that received an initial investment from private equity firm EnCap Investments in 2016.

The firm appears to be stepping back from energy sector as it sells off assets. Last month EnCap-backed XCL Resources sold its Uinta Basin oil and gas assets to SM Energy Co. and Northern Oil and Gas in a transaction totaling $2.55 billion. EnCap had another deal in June as well, selling some assets to Matador Resources for nearly $2 billion. Click here to continue reading.

Events not to miss

Put these Houston-area energy-related events on your calendar.

  • 2024 Young Leaders Institute: Renewable Energy and Climate Solutions is taking place July 15 to July 19 at Asia Society of Texas. Register now.
  • CCS/Decarbonization Project Development, Finance and Investment, taking place July 23 to 25, is the deepest dive into the economic and regulatory factors driving the success of the CCS/CCUS project development landscape. Register now.
  • The 5th Texas Energy Forum 2024, organized by U.S. Energy Stream, will take place on August 21 and 22 at the Petroleum Club of Houston. Register now.

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A View From HETI

OpenSafe.AI, a new platform that utilizes AI, data, and hazard and resilience models to support storm response decision makers, has secured an NSF grant. Photo via Getty Images

Researchers from Rice University have secured a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to continue their work on improving safety and resiliency of coastal communities plagued by flooding and hazardous weather.

The Rice team of engineers and collaborators includes Jamie Padgett, Ben Hu, and Avantika Gori along with David Retchless at Texas A&M University at Galveston. The researchers are working in collaboration with the Severe Storm Prediction, Education and Evacuation from Disasters (SSPEED) Center and the Ken Kennedy Institute at Rice and A&M-Galveston’s Institute for a Disaster Resilient Texas.

Together, the team is developing and hopes to deploy “Open-Source Situational Awareness Framework for Equitable Multi-Hazard Impact Sensing using Responsible AI,” or OpenSafe.AI, a new platform that utilizes AI, data, and hazard and resilience models "to provide timely, reliable and equitable insights to emergency response organizations and communities before, during and after tropical cyclones and coastal storm events," reads a news release from Rice.

“Our goal with this project is to enable communities to better prepare for and navigate severe weather by providing better estimates of what is actually happening or might happen within the next hours or days,” Padgett, Rice’s Stanley C. Moore Professor in Engineering and chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, says in the release. “OpenSafe.AI will take into account multiple hazards such as high-speed winds, storm surge and compound flooding and forecast their potential impact on the built environment such as transportation infrastructure performance or hazardous material spills triggered by severe storms.”

OpenSafe.AI platform will be developed to support decision makers before, during, and after a storm.

“By combining cutting-edge AI with a deep understanding of the needs of emergency responders, we aim to provide accurate, real-time information that will enable better decision-making in the face of disasters,” adds Hu, associate professor of computer science at Rice.

In the long term, OpenSafe.AI hopes to explore how the system can be applied to and scaled in other regions in need of equitable resilience to climate-driven hazards.

“Our goal is not only to develop a powerful tool for emergency response agencies along the coast but to ensure that all communities ⎯ especially the ones most vulnerable to storm-induced damage ⎯ can rely on this technology to better respond to and recover from the devastating effects of coastal storms,” adds Gori, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rice.

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