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New Houston study shows health impacts of full vehicle electrification in major U.S. cities

what could be

Switching fully to electric vehicles could prevent 157 premature deaths each month in Houston. Photo courtesy

A new study from the University of Houston shows that there's no one-size-fits-all strategy for full vehicle electrification in America's largest U.S. cities.

The study by Ali Mousavinezhad and Yunsoo Choi considered changes in air pollution, specifically PM2.5 and ozone levels, in Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Chicago under different electrification scenarios and how the changes could impact public health.

“Our findings indicate vehicle electrification generally contributes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving air quality, and lowering the mortality rate associated with exposure to toxic air pollutants,” Mousavinezhad said in a statement.

However, Mousavinezhad and Choi found that full electrification in Los Angeles could have negative impacts on public health.

Switching fully to electric vehicles could prevent 157 premature deaths each month in Houston, 796 deaths in New York and 328 in Chicago, according to the study. But in Los Angeles, full electrification would increase mortality.

Additionally, full electrification would save between $51 million to $249 million per day for New York, Chicago, and Houston in health-related costs. But Los Angeles would face economic losses of up to $18 million per day.

This was largely due to the unique weather and geography in Los Angeles that can trap air pollutants that harm the lungs. The study found that full electrification would lead to increases in PM2.5 and MDA8 ozone. According to UH, the study reveals the importance and "complexity of air quality management."

“The four largest U.S. cities have distinct anthropogenic sources of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, “Choi added. “Each city requires unique regulations or strategies, including different scenarios for the adoption of electric vehicles, to reduce concentrations of these pollutants and greenhouse gases effectively.”

Mousavinezhad, lead author, is a recent Ph.D. graduate from UH. Choi is a professor of atmospheric chemistry, AI deep learning, air quality modeling and satellite remote sensing. The study, titled “Air quality and health co-benefits of vehicle electrification and emission controls in the most populated United States urban hubs: insights from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Houston,” was published in the journal Science of the Total Environment earlier this year.

Earlier this year, Texas ranked low in a study that looked at the closest EV charging stations equivalent to a trip to the gas station. However, another study showed that Texas is among the top of the pack for states with the most electric vehicle registrations, but Houston fell behind other large metros in the state for EV friendliness. Click here to read more about both reports.
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Lignium combats greenhouse gasses with a green fuel that boasts an enviably low carbon footprint. Photo courtesy of Lignium

Why this growing Chilean clean energy company moved its HQ to Houston

future of farming

In Houston, air pollution is usually more of an abstract concept than a harsh reality. But in parts of Chile, the consequences of heating homes with wet wood are catching up to residents.

“Given all the contamination, there are times kids aren’t allowed to go to school. The air pollution is really affecting people’s health,” says Agustín Ríos, COO of Lignium Energy.

Additionally, the methane and nitrous oxide produced by cattle farming are a problem. But Lignium Energy, an international company started in Chile and now headquartered in Houston’s Greentown Labs, has a solution that can solve both problems by upending the latter.

“There’s a lack of solutions with the problem of manure. Methane gases are destroying our planet,” says CEO and co-founder Enrique Guzmán. He goes on to say that most solutions currently being developed are expensive and complex. But not Lignium Energy’s method, invented by co-founder José Antonio Caraball.

Caraball has patented an extraordinarily simple concept. Lignium separates the solid from liquid excretions, then cleans the solid to generate a hay-like biomass. Biomass refers to organic matter that can be used as fuel. What Lignium makes from the cattle evacuations is a clean, odorless and highly calorific biomass.

Essentially, Lignium combats greenhouse gasses with a green fuel that boasts an enviably low carbon footprint. “Our process is very cheap and very simple. That’s why we are a great solution,” explains Guzmán.

Caraball, an industrial engineer, came up with the idea six years ago, says Guzmán. Five years ago, he began working with the company, one year ago, Guzmán and Ríos picked up and moved to Houston.

“We decided to move out of Chile due to market size,” says Ríos. However, the product is already being sold to consumers in its homeland.

Why Houston? The reason was twofold. As an energy company, Ríos says that they wanted to be in “the energy capital of the world.” But Texas is also one of the largest sites of cattle farming on the planet. Lignium prefers to work with farms with more than 500 head to optimize harvesting the waste that becomes biomass.

With that in mind, Lignium has partnered with Southwest Regional Dairy Center in Stephenville, Texas, a little more than an hour southwest of Fort Worth, a town known as the world’s rodeo capital. The facility is associated with Texas A&M, though Guzmán says Lignium is not officially associated with the university.

Guzmán says that the company is currently hiring a team member to help Lignium figure out commercial logistics, as well as four or five other Houstonians who will help them take their product to market in the United States, and eventually around the globe. For now, he predicts that they will be able to sell to consumers in this country by early next year, if not the fourth quarter of 2023.

“We are very committed to the solution because, at the end of the day, if we do good work with the company, we are sure we can give better conditions to the cattle industry,” says Guzmán. “Then we can make a big impact on a real problem.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Houston climatech incubator names new CFO

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Greentown Labs, a climatech incubator with locations in Houston and Somerville, Massachusetts, has hired Naheed Malik as its chief financial officer. In her new role, she oversees finance, accounting and human resources.

Malik previously worked at American Tower Corp., an owner of wireless communication towers. During her 12-year tenure there, she was vice president of financial planning and analysis, and vice president of corporate finance.

Before American Tower, Malik led financial planning and analysis at Wolters Kluwer Health, and was a management consultant at Kearney and an audit CPA at EY.

Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, says in a news release that Malik’s “deep expertise will be a boon for Greentown as we seek to serve even more climatech startups in our home states of Massachusetts and Texas, and beyond.”

“I am delighted to join Greentown at such an exciting time in its organizational growth,” Malik says. “As a nonprofit that’s deeply dedicated to its mission of supporting climatech innovation, Greentown is poised to build on its impressive track record and expand its impact in the years to come.”

Greentown bills itself as North America’s largest incubator for climatech startups. Today, it’s home to more than 200 startups. Since its founding in 2011, Greentown has nurtured more than 575 startups that have raised over $8.2 billion in funding.

Last year, Greentown’s CEO and president Kevin Knobloch announced that he would be stepping down in July 2024, after less than a year in the role. The incubator. About a month before the announcement, Knobloch reported that Greentown would reduce its staff by 30 percent, eliminating roles in Boston and Houston. He noted changes in leadership, growth of the team and adjustments following the pandemic.

Greentown plans to announce its new permanent CEO by the end of the month.

Being prepared: Has the Texas grid been adequately winterized?

Winter in Texas

Houstonians may feel anxious as the city and state brace for additional freezing temperatures this winter. Every year since 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, Texans wonder whether the grid will keep them safe in the face of another winter weather event. The record-breaking cold temperatures of Uri exposed a crucial vulnerability in the state’s power and water infrastructure.

According to ERCOT’s 6-day supply and demand forecast from January 3, 2025, it expected plenty of generation capacity to meet the needs of Texans during the most recent period of colder weather. So why did the grid fail so spectacularly in 2021?

  1. Demand for electricity surged as millions of people tried to heat their homes.
  2. ERCOT was simply not prepared despite previous winter storms of similar intensity to offer lessons in similarities.
  3. The state was highly dependent on un-winterized natural gas power plants for electricity.
  4. The Texas grid is isolated from other states.
  5. Failures of communication and coordination between ERCOT, state officials, utility companies, gas suppliers, electricity providers, and power plants contributed to the devastating outages.

The domino effect resulted in power outages for millions of Texans, the deaths of hundreds of Texans, billions of dollars in damages, with some households going nearly a week without heat, power, and water. This catastrophe highlighted the need for swift and sweeping upgrades and protections against future extreme weather events.

Texas State Legislature Responds

Texas lawmakers proactively introduced and passed legislation aimed at upgrading the state’s power infrastructure and preventing repeated failures within weeks of the storm. Senate Bill 3 (SB3) measures included:

  • Requirements to weatherize gas supply chain and pipeline facilities that sell electric energy within ERCOT.
  • The ability to impose penalties of up to $1 million for violation of these requirements.
  • Requirement for ERCOT to procure new power sources to ensure grid reliability during extreme heat and extreme cold.
  • Designation of specific natural gas facilities that are critical for power delivery during energy emergencies.
  • Development of an alert system that is to be activated when supply may not be able to meet demand.
  • Requirement for the Public Utility Commission of Texas, or PUCT, to establish an emergency wholesale electricity pricing program.

Texas Weatherization by Natural Gas Plants

In a Railroad Commission of Texas document published May 2024 and geared to gas supply chain and pipeline facilities, dozens of solutions were outlined with weatherization best practices and approaches in an effort to prevent another climate-affected crisis from severe winter weather.

Some solutions included:

  • Installation of insulation on critical components of a facility.
  • Construction of permanent or temporary windbreaks, housing, or barriers around critical equipment to reduce the impact of windchill.
  • Guidelines for the removal of ice and snow from critical equipment.
  • Instructions for the use of temporary heat systems on localized freezing problems like heating blankets, catalytic heaters, or fuel line heaters.

According to Daniel Cohan, professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, power plants across Texas have installed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weatherization upgrades to their facilities. In ERCOT’s January 2022 winterization report, it stated that 321 out of 324 electricity generation units and transmission facilities fully passed the new regulations.

Is the Texas Grid Adequately Winterized?

Utilities, power generators, ERCOT, and the PUCT have all made changes to their operations and facilities since 2021 to be better prepared for extreme winter weather. Are these changes enough? Has the Texas grid officially been winterized?

This season, as winter weather tests Texans, residents may potentially experience localized outages. When tree branches cannot support the weight of the ice, they can snap and knock out power lines to neighborhoods across the state. In the instance of a downed power line, we must rely on regional utilities to act quickly to restore power.

The specific legislation enacted by the Texas state government in response to the 2021 disaster addressed to the relevant parties ensures that they have done their part to winterize the Texas grid.

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Sam Luna is director at BKV Energy, where he oversees brand and go-to-market strategy, customer experience, marketing execution, and more.

This article first appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.

Halliburton names 5 clean energy startups to latest incubator cohort

clean team

Halliburton Labs has named five companies to its latest cohort, including one from Texas.

All of the companies are working to help accelerate the future of the energy industry in different ways. The incubator aims to advance the companies’ commercialization with support from Halliburton's network, facilities and financing opportunities.

The five new members include:

  • 360 Energy, an Austin-based in-field computing company with technology that is able to capture flared or stranded gas and monetize it through modular data centers
  • Cella, a New York-based mineral storage company that provides end-to-end services, from resource assessment to proprietary injection technology, and monitoring techniques to provide geologic carbon storage solutions
  • Espiku, an engineering services company based in Bend, Oregon, that finds solutions that advance water and minerals recovery from brines and industrial-produced water streams
  • Mitico, based in Los Angeles, that offers technology services to capture carbon dioxide by using its patent-pending granulated metal carbonate sorption technology (GMC) that captures more than 95% of the CO2 emitted from post-combustion point sources
  • NuCube, a Pasadena, California-based company with a nuclear fission reactor under development

“We welcome these innovative energy startups,” Dale Winger, managing director of Halliburton Labs, said in a news release. “We are eager to help these participant companies use their time and capital efficiently to progress new solutions that meet industry requirements for cost, reliability, and sustainability.”

Halliburton Labs also announced that it will host the Finalists Pitch Day on March 26, 2025, in Denver for energy and decarbonization industry innovators, startups and investors ahead of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Industry Growth Forum. The pitch event will precede registration and the opening reception of the NREL forum. Find more information here.

Adena Power, an Ohio-based clean energy startup, was the latest to join Halliburton Labs prior to the new cohort. The company used three patented materials to produce a sodium-based battery that delivers clean, safe and long-lasting energy storage.

The incubator also named San Francisco-based venture capital investor Pulakesh Mukherjee, partner at Imperative Ventures, which specializes in hard tech decarbonization startups, to its advisory board last spring.

Read more about the incubator's 2023 cohort here.

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