new hire

Law firm expands energy transition-focused, Houston-based team

Jenny Speck joined Vinson & Elkins as a Houston-based partner in its Energy Transition and Tax Practices. Photo via velaw.com

An energy transition-focused legal team has on boarded its newest member.

Jenny Speck joined Vinson & Elkins as a Houston-based partner in its Energy Transition and Tax Practices. According to V&E, she will advise clients on energy transition tax incentives. Her experience includes working on renewable projects from onshore and offshore wind, solar, combined heat and power to biogas property, carbon capture, hydrogen, and more.

“Jenny has a commercial sensibility that our clients will value. She knows how to get deals done and is adept at calibrating tax advice to a company’s strategic objectives,” Vinson & Elkins Partner Sean Moran, one of the leaders of the firm’s Energy Transition Practice, says in a news release. “She is another phenomenal addition to our Renewable Energy and Tax Practices, which are booming as the Inflation Reduction Act continues to drive unprecedented investment and development in renewable energy.”

Joining V&E from Bracewell, Speck previously served as the senior manager of tax and regulatory compliance at Navigator CO2 Ventures LLC and also worked in the National Tax practice of Deloitte Tax LLP in Washington, D.C. She earned her undergraduate degree from Northeastern State University and her Juris Doctorate from the University of Tulsa College of Law. She's been ranked by Legal 500 U.S. and included in the Lawdragon 500 Leading US Energy Lawyers guide for “Energy Transition Incentives.”

“I have worked across from Vinson & Elkins on transactions and have seen the depth of their experience, along with the efficiency and camaraderie they bring to projects,” Speck adds. “I look forward to joining my new colleagues and strengthening their tax and energy powerhouse.”

She will work with partners Moran and Lauren Collins, who joined V&E along with four renewable energy and tax lawyers in 2021, as well as Jorge Medina, who was on boarded to the team earlier this year.

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A View From HETI

Researchers from Rice University say their recent findings could revolutionize power grids, making energy transmission more efficient. Image via Getty Images.

A new study from researchers at Rice University, published in Nature Communications, could lead to future advances in superconductors with the potential to transform energy use.

The study revealed that electrons in strange metals, which exhibit unusual resistance to electricity and behave strangely at low temperatures, become more entangled at a specific tipping point, shedding new light on these materials.

A team led by Rice’s Qimiao Si, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy, used quantum Fisher information (QFI), a concept from quantum metrology, to measure how electron interactions evolve under extreme conditions. The research team also included Rice’s Yuan Fang, Yiming Wang, Mounica Mahankali and Lei Chen along with Haoyu Hu of the Donostia International Physics Center and Silke Paschen of the Vienna University of Technology. Their work showed that the quantum phenomenon of electron entanglement peaks at a quantum critical point, which is the transition between two states of matter.

“Our findings reveal that strange metals exhibit a unique entanglement pattern, which offers a new lens to understand their exotic behavior,” Si said in a news release. “By leveraging quantum information theory, we are uncovering deep quantum correlations that were previously inaccessible.”

The researchers examined a theoretical framework known as the Kondo lattice, which explains how magnetic moments interact with surrounding electrons. At a critical transition point, these interactions intensify to the extent that the quasiparticles—key to understanding electrical behavior—disappear. Using QFI, the team traced this loss of quasiparticles to the growing entanglement of electron spins, which peaks precisely at the quantum critical point.

In terms of future use, the materials share a close connection with high-temperature superconductors, which have the potential to transmit electricity without energy loss, according to the researchers. By unblocking their properties, researchers believe this could revolutionize power grids and make energy transmission more efficient.

The team also found that quantum information tools can be applied to other “exotic materials” and quantum technologies.

“By integrating quantum information science with condensed matter physics, we are pivoting in a new direction in materials research,” Si said in the release.

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