Exxon expands CO2 storage network with Calpine agreement

power deal

ExxonMobil has agreed to transport CO2 from Calpine Corp.’s Baytown Energy Center. Photo via Getty Images.

ExxonMobil Corp. has agreed to transport and permanently store up to 2 million metric tons per year of CO2 from Calpine Corp.’s Baytown Energy Center.

The strategic agreement is part of Calpine’s Baytown Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Project, which is designed to capture the energy center’s CO2 emissions and enable the supply of low-carbon electricity. It’s also in line with Exxon’s broader strategy to expand its CCS infrastructure along the Gulf Coast.

“Calpine is excited to partner with ExxonMobil to achieve this important project milestone,” Caleb Stephenson, Calpine Executive Vice President, said in a news release. “As the largest U.S. generator of electricity from natural gas, we understand that the nation’s gas fleet will remain the backbone of the grid for decades to come. We believe CCS is an actionable and cost-effective way to meet customers' demand for reliable power and alleviate concerns about the indisputable long-term need for gas-fired facilities. Low-cost natural gas along with carbon capture technology and widespread geologic storage resources can bolster U.S. energy, natural gas use, jobs, and export strength.”

The Baytown CCS Project is expected to produce about 500 megawatts of low-carbon electricity, which Calpine said is enough to power more than 500,000 homes. It can also provide steam for nearby industrial purposes.

The project anticipates creating construction and other full-time jobs, with engineering, permitting, and other development activities coming soon.

"We’re thrilled to work with Calpine on this project that supports American energy security, enhances industrial competitiveness and leverages America’s abundant low-cost natural gas resources," Barry Engle, President of ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions, said in a news release. “This agreement underscores the growing confidence our customers across diverse sectors—including steel, fertilizer, industrial gases, natural gas processing, and now power generation—have in our unique end-to-end CCS system.”

This is ExxonMobil’s sixth CCS customer, bringing the company's total amount of CO2 under contract to approximately 16 million tons a year, according to the company. The CO2 from Calpine’s facility will tie into ExxonMobil’s CO2 pipeline system on the Gulf Coast.

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17 Houston energy sector cos. among most future-ready businesses, says WSJ

More than 20 Houston-area companies reign among the most future-ready in the U.S., based on a first-time ranking of the best S&P 500 companies for the future. The majority of them are part of Houston's booming energy sector.

Published by The Wall Street Journal, the ranking was created by Bendable Labs for the WSJ Leadership Institute. It evaluates how S&P 500 companies stack up in six areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility. To be ranked, a company had to be part of the S&P 500 as of Dec. 31.

Here are the Houston-area companies in the energy sector included in the ranking of the best companies for the future:

No. 105 SLB
No. 120 Baker Hughes
No. 125 ConocoPhillips
No. 158 NRG Energy
No. 176 Targa Resources
No. 185 Chevron
No. 195 Halliburton
No. 223 Coterra Energy
No. 235 Exxon Mobil
No. 250 Kinder Morgan
No. 257 Quanta Services
No. 276 CenterPoint Energy
No. 313 Occidental Petroleum
No. 333 EOG Resources
No. 365 LyondellBasell Industries
No. 408 Phillips 66
No. 500 APA

Here are the remaining Houston-headquartered businesses that made the list:

No. 72 Hewlett Packard Enterprise
No. 229 Waste Management
No. 285 Sysco
No. 318 Camden Property Trust
No. 373 Comfort Systems USA
No. 401 Crown Castle

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A version of this story first appeared on InnovationMap.com.

Rice, DOE launch new Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center

Energy Diplomacy

Representatives from three countries visited the Rice University Baker Institute for Public Policy this month to establish the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center, a new partnership promoting energy advancement in the region.

On June 11, Baker played host to delegations from Cyprus, Greece and Israel that included Michael Damianos, Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry of the Republic of Cyprus; Stavros Papastavrou, Minister of Environment and Energy for Greece; and Yechiel Leiter, Israeli Ambassador to the United States. U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Rice University President Reginald DesRoches were also present to sign a declaration of intent (DOI) that officially formed the partnership first envisioned in the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act of 2019.

“This is a dynamic field,” David Satterfield, director of the Baker Institute and former U.S. ambassador to Turkey and Lebanon, said in a news release from Rice. “The East Med has enormous further potential, not just for development, for coordination of development. It is a positive thing for energy, it's a positive thing for industry, for all of the three states represented here today. It's good for the region in a geopolitical sense as well. It provides a stabilization based upon the pragmatic and integrated development and distribution of energy resources, and that is a very good thing indeed.”

The new pact will focus on improving grid stability in the region, as well as on developing U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) infrastructure and new technologies.

Another goal of the Eastern Mediterranean Energy Center is suppressing conflict in the region. When the Eastern Mediterranean Security and Energy Partnership Act was signed by President Joe Biden in 2019, it lifted the prohibition on arms sales to the Republic of Cyprus, authorized foreign military financing for Greece and increased intelligence gathering on Russian interests in the Mediterranean.

“We need to use commerce to suppress and surpass conflict – that is the way to bring nations together in geopolitical tensions between countries,” Wright said in the release. “You think of it as zero-sum, there's a winner and a loser, and both sides want to be the winner. Ultimately, one side will be the winner, one side will be the loser. Maybe more objectively, both sides lose, but one loses more than the other. In commerce, it's entirely different, and commerce is voluntary exchange. It only happens when there's winners on both sides. So, when you build, you develop energy and you build energy distribution infrastructure, you bring countries, you bring people together. The three founding nations here and their leadership are all friends of mine and passionate in this mission. They not only want to develop energy to bring better opportunities to their people, but they wanted to bring those three nations together, and all of their neighbors as well, and use commerce to suppress and surpass conflict. These are generational investments.”

6 Houston companies earn recognition on Time’s global greentech list 2026

green giants

Six Houston-area businesses appear on Time magazine’s 2026 list of the world’s top greentech companies, with a high-flying name leading the pack.

The highest-ranked local company is Houston-based geothermal power producer Fervo Energy, which claims the No. 4 spot—up from No. 14 last year.

In May, Fervo raised nearly $1.9 billion in its IPO, making it the biggest-ever IPO in the clean energy sector. The company’s valuation now exceeds $10 billion.

Founded in 2017, Fervo borrows methods from the oil and gas sector to drill wells that go down vertically into hot rock before turning horizontal, letting water circulate through them and produce electricity from the heat it absorbs. Cape Station in Utah, the company's first utility-scale project, is set to start delivering power to the grid later this year, with capacity expected to grow to 100 megawatts by 2027.

Co-founder and CEO Tim Latimer tells Fast Company, which named him a 2026 Visionary of the Year, that he launched his career as a drilling engineer for fossil fuels, “but quickly became obsessed with this idea that the drilling techniques we were using would actually be transformative for the world of geothermal as well.”

Fast Company notes the geothermal power generated by Cape Station will be available 24/7, unlike wind and solar power.

“When you start adding something to the grid mix that’s affordable and works around the clock,” Latimer says, “that’s going to be a huge asset to meeting our country’s energy needs.”

Time teamed up with data provider Statista to compile the second annual ranking of the 250 top greentech companies in the world. Companies on the list either develop or provide green technology, products, or services that help ease or reverse the environmental impacts of human activity.

Statista gathered and analyzed data from more than 8,300 companies to create the list, and they were scored in three categories: positive environmental impact, innovation, and financial strength. Fervo earned a score of 94.63 out of 100.

Joining Fervo on this year’s list are:

Houston-based Quaise Energy (No. 78), which specializes in terawatt-scale geothermal power
The Woodlands-based Plus Power (No. 112), which develops, owns and operates battery storage projects
Houston-based Utility Global (No. 167), which develops decarbonization technology
Houston-based 1PointFive (No. 217), an Occidental Petroleum subsidiary that offers large-scale carbon removal and storage.
Houston-based Sage Geosystems (No. 250), which produces commercial-scale geothermal power

Earlier this year, six Houston-area companies landed on Time's list of top greentech companies in America: Fervo (No. 1), Quaise Energy (No. 49), Plus Power (No. 71), Utility Global (No. 98), Solugen (No. 199) and Noodoe (No. 215).

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