Baker Hughes launches new digital platform for CCUS operations

now online

Baker Hughes has incorporated a new tech platform for its CCUS operations. Photo via Getty Images

Baker Hughes has announced the debut of its digital platform to track CO2 volumes in real time, CarbonEdge. CarbonEdge utilizes carbon capture utilization and sequestration journey, which includes pipeline flows.

Powered by Cordant, the Houston-based Baker Hughes boasts CarbonEdge is “the first end-to-end, risk-based digital platform for CCUS operations that provides comprehensive support, regulatory reporting, and operational risk management,” according to the company.

The connectivity across the entire CCUS project lifecycle will assist customers to better improve decision-making, enhance operational efficiency, identify and manage risk, and simplify regulatory reporting. Applicable to any CCUS infrastructure applied across multiple industries, CarbonEdge joins other Baker Hughes’ digital solutions in JewelSuite, Leucipa, and Cordant, which all span the energy and industrial value chains to help ensure lower emissions.

“CCUS technology solutions are essential for driving decarbonization of the energy and industrial sectors on our path to solving for climate change,” Baker Hughes Chairman and CEO Lorenzo Simonelli says in a news release.

The launch customer will be Wabash Valley Resources (WVR), which is a low-carbon ammonia fertilizer pioneer in Indiana.WVR will deploy Baker Hughes’ CarbonEdge platform to monitor, measure, and verify volumes of CO2 transported, collected, and sequestered underground.

“With the launch of CarbonEdge, we not only expand our portfolio of digital solutions to support new energies and empower our customers’ ability to mitigate risk while enhancing operational efficiency, but also take a bold step toward a future with more sustainable energy development,” Simonelli continues.”We look forward to working alongside Wabash Valley Resources to refine and evolve CarbonEdge, ensuring it continues to meet the dynamic needs of a rapidly changing industry.”

From Your Site Articles

Here's 1PoinFive's newest customer on its Texas CCUS project. Photo via 1pointfive.com

Oxy subsidiary secures Microsoft as largest-ever DAC carbon removal credit customer

major move

Occidental Petroleum’s Houston-based carbon capture, utilization and, sequestration (CCUS) subsidiary, 1PointFive, has inked a six-year deal to sell 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide removal credits to software giant Microsoft.

In a news release, 1Point5 says this agreement represents the largest-ever single purchase of carbon credits enabled by direct air capture (DAC). DAC technology pulls CO2 from the air at any location, not just where carbon dioxide is emitted.

Under the agreement, the carbon dioxide that underlies the credits will be stored in a below-the-surface saline aquifer and won’t be used to produce oil or gas.

“A commitment of this magnitude further demonstrates how one of the world’s largest corporations is integrating scalable [DAC] into its net-zero strategy,” says Michael Avery, president and general manager of 1PointFive. “Energy demand across the technology industry is increasing, and we believe [DAC] is uniquely suited to remove residual emissions and further climate goals.”

Brian Marrs, senior director for carbon removal and energy at Microsoft, says DAC plays a key role in Microsoft’s effort to become carbon-negative by 2030.

The carbon dioxide will be stored at 1PointFive’s first industrial-scale DAC plant, being built near Odessa. The $1.3 billion Stratos project, which 1Point5 is developing through a joint venture with investment manager BlackRock, is designed to capture up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2 per year.

The facility is scheduled to open in mid-2025.

Aside from Microsoft, organizations that have agreed to buy carbon removal credits from 1Point5 include Amazon, Airbus, All Nippon Airways, the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans, and TD Bank.

Occidental says 1PointFive plans to set up more than 100 DAC facilities worldwide by 2035.

Ad Placement 300x100

Ad Placement 300x600

CultureMap Emails are Awesome

Property Showcase

Houston cleantech startup Helix Earth lands $1.2M NSF grant

federal funding

Renewable equipment manufacturer Helix Earth Technologies is one of three Houston-based companies to secure federal funding through the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant program in recent months.

The company—which was founded based on NASA technology, spun out of Rice University and has been incubated at Greentown Labs—has received approximately $1.2 million from the National Science Foundation to develop its high-efficiency retrofit dehumidification systems that aim to reduce the energy consumption of commercial AC units. The company reports that its technology has the potential to cut AC energy use by up to 50 percent.

"This award validates our vision and propels our impact forward with valuable research funding and the prestige of the NSF stamp of approval," Rawand Rasheed, Helix CEO and founder, shared in a LinkedIn post. "This award is a reflection our exceptional team's grit, expertise, and collaborative spirit ... This is just the beginning as we continue pushing for a sustainable future."

Two other Houston-area companies also landed $1.2 million in NSF SBIR Phase II funding during the same period:

Resilitix Intelligence, a disaster AI startup that was founded shortly after Hurricane Harvey, that works to "reduce the human and economic toll of disasters" by providing local and state organizations and emergency response teams with near-real-time, AI-driven insights to improve response speed, save lives and accelerate recovery
Conroe-based Fluxworks Inc., founded in 2021 at Texas A&M, which provides magnetic gear technology for the space industry that has the potential to significantly enhance in-space manufacturing and unlock new capabilities for industries by allowing advanced research and manufacturing in microgravity

The three grants officially rolled out in early September 2025 and are expected to run through August 2027, according to the NSF. The SBIR Phase II grants support in-depth research and development of ideas that showed potential for commercialization after receiving Phase I grants from government agencies.

However, congressional authority for the program, often called "America's seed fund," expired on September 30, 2025, and has stalled since the recent government shutdown. Government agencies cannot issue new grants until Congress agrees on a path forward. According to SBIR.gov, "if no further action is taken by Congress, federal agencies may not be able to award funding under SBIR/STTR programs and SBIR/STTR solicitations may be delayed, cancelled, or rescinded."

Mars Materials makes breakthrough in clean carbon fiber production

Future of Fiber

Houston-based Mars Materials has made a breakthrough in turning stored carbon dioxide into everyday products.

In partnership with the Textile Innovation Engine of North Carolina and North Carolina State University, Mars Materials turned its CO2-derived product into a high-quality raw material for producing carbon fiber, according to a news release. According to the company, the product works "exactly like" the traditional chemical used to create carbon fiber that is derived from oil and coal.

Testing showed the end product met the high standards required for high-performance carbon fiber. Carbon fiber finds its way into aircraft, missile components, drones, racecars, golf clubs, snowboards, bridges, X-ray equipment, prosthetics, wind turbine blades and more.

The successful test “keeps a promise we made to our investors and the industry,” Aaron Fitzgerald, co-founder and CEO of Mars Materials, said in the release. “We proved we can make carbon fiber from the air without losing any quality.”

“Just as we did with our water-soluble polymers, getting it right on the first try allows us to move faster,” Fitzgerald adds. “We can now focus on scaling up production to accelerate bringing manufacturing of this critical material back to the U.S.”

Mars Materials, founded in 2019, converts captured carbon into resources, such as carbon fiber and wastewater treatment chemicals. Investors include Untapped Capital, Prithvi Ventures, Climate Capital Collective, Overlap Holdings, BlackTech Capital, Jonathan Azoff, Nate Salpeter and Brian Andrés Helmick.

Tesla no longer world's biggest EV maker as sales drop for second year

EV Update

Tesla lost its crown as the world’s bestselling electric vehicle maker as a customer revolt over Elon Musk’s right-wing politics, expiring U.S. tax breaks for buyers and stiff overseas competition pushed sales down for a second year in a row.

Tesla said that it delivered 1.64 million vehicles in 2025, down 9% from a year earlier.

Chinese rival BYD, which sold 2.26 million vehicles last year, is now the biggest EV maker.

It's a stunning reversal for a car company whose rise once seemed unstoppable as it overtook traditional automakers with far more resources and helped make Musk the world's richest man. The sales drop came despite President Donald Trump's marketing effort early last year when he called a press conference to praise Musk as a “patriot” in front of Teslas lined up on the White House driveway, then announced he would be buying one, bucking presidential precedent to not endorse private company products.

For the fourth quarter, Tesla sales totaled 418,227, falling short of even the much reduced 440,000 target that analysts recently polled by FactSet had expected. Sales were hit hard by the expiration of a $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicle purchases that was phased out by the Trump administration at the end of September.

Tesla stock fell 2.6% to $438.07 on Friday.

Even with multiple issues buffeting the company, investors are betting that Tesla CEO Musk can deliver on his ambitions to make Tesla a leader in robotaxi services and get consumers to embrace humanoid robots that can perform basic tasks in homes and offices. Reflecting that optimism, the stock finished 2025 with a gain of approximately 11%.

The latest quarter was the first with sales of stripped-down versions of the Model Y and Model 3 that Musk unveiled in early October as part of an effort to revive sales. The new Model Y costs just under $40,000 while customers can buy the cheaper Model 3 for under $37,000. Those versions are expected to help Tesla compete with Chinese models in Europe and Asia.

For fourth-quarter earnings coming out in late January, analysts are expecting the company to post a 3% drop in sales and a nearly 40% drop in earnings per share, according to FactSet. Analysts expect the downward trend in sales and profits to eventually reverse itself as 2026 rolls along.

Musk said earlier last year that a “major rebound” in sales was underway, but investors were unruffled when that didn't pan out, choosing instead to focus on Musk's pivot to different parts of business. He has has been saying the future of the company lies with its driverless robotaxis service, its energy storage business and building robots for the home and factory — and much less with car sales.

Tesla started rolling out its robotaxi service in Austin in June, first with safety monitors in the cars to take over in case of trouble, then testing without them. The company hopes to roll out the service in several cities this year.

To do that successfully, it needs to take on rival Waymo, which has been operating autonomous taxis for years and has far more customers. It also will also have to contend with regulatory challenges. The company is under several federal safety investigations and other probes. In California, Tesla is at risk of temporarily losing its license to sell cars in the state after a judge there ruled it had misled customers about their safety.

“Regulatory is going to be a big issue,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives, a well-known bull on the stock. “We're dealing with people's lives.”

Still, Ives said he expects Tesla's autonomous offerings will soon overcome any setbacks.

Musk has said he hopes software updates to his cars will enable hundreds of thousands of Tesla vehicles to operate autonomously with zero human intervention by the end of this year. The company is also planning to begin production of its AI-powered Cybercab with no steering wheel or pedals in 2026.

To keep Musk focused on the company, Tesla’s directors awarded Musk a potentially enormous new pay package that shareholders backed at the annual meeting in November.

Musk scored another huge windfall two weeks ago when the Delaware Supreme Court reversed a decision that deprived him of a $55 billion pay package that Tesla doled out in 2018.

Musk could become the world's first trillionaire later this year when he sells shares of his rocket company SpaceX to the public for the first time in what analysts expect would be a blockbuster initial public offering.

View All Listings

ENERGYCAPITALHTX EMAILS ARE AWESOME