Clay Seigle has joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Photo by Douglas Rissing. Courtesy of Getty Images.

Houston-based energy industry analyst Clay Seigle has joined the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as a senior fellow and the James R. Schlesinger Chair for Energy and Geopolitics in the Energy Security and Climate Change (ESCC) Program.

“I’m honored to join CSIS as Senior Fellow and the James R. Schlesinger Chair for Energy and Geopolitics,” Seigle said in a news release. “In a time of unprecedented change in global energy markets, CSIS is uniquely positioned to advance policies that promote security, resilience, and innovation. I look forward to working alongside Joseph (Majkut, director of the Energy Security and Climate Change Program) and our outstanding colleagues to deliver impactful research and expand CSIS’s engagement with stakeholders in Washington and Houston.”

Seigle most recently served as director of Global Oil at Rapidan Energy Group, a D.C.-based independent energy analysis firm. At REG, he provided expert analysis on oil market forecasts and geopolitical scenarios to government and private sector stakeholders. He has also held leadership and analysis roles at organizations including Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA), the U.S. Department of Energy, Enron and others. He specializes in market intelligence, global energy security and political risk.

Seigle is a board member of the Houston Committee on Foreign Relations and chairs its Finance Committee. He is also a former vice president of the U.S. Association for Energy Economics. He holds a master’s degree in international relations (Middle East) and economics from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies and a bachelor’s degree in government from the University of Texas at Austin.

The ESCC’s work has focused on developing diverse energy resources for the U.S. and providing leaders with insights on how to address challenges like climate change. According to CSIS, the ESCC program recently launched an Economic Security and Technology Department that aims to tackle topics like using artificial intelligence to maintain energy security.

“Our longstanding energy program is a centerpiece of our department’s work on the drivers of U.S. economic security in an era of technology competition,” Navin Girishankar, president of the CSIS Economic Security and Technology Department, said in a news release. “Clay’s deep understanding of energy markets and energy security will be an asset to CSIS leadership on these issues in the years to come. We are delighted that he is joining our team at a critical time for U.S. economic security policy.”

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Texas could topple Virginia as biggest data-center market by 2030, JLL report says

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Everything’s bigger in Texas, they say—and that phrase now applies to the state’s growing data-center presence.

A new report from commercial real estate services provider JLL says Texas could overtake Northern Virginia as the world’s largest data-center market by 2030. Northern Virginia is a longtime holder of that title.

What’s driving Texas’ increasingly larger role in the data-center market? The key factor is artificial intelligence.

Companies like Google and Microsoft need more energy-hungry data centers to power AI innovations. In a 2023 article, Forbes explained that AI models consume a lot of energy because of the massive amount of data used to train them, as well as the complexity of those models and the rising volume of tasks assigned to AI.

“The data-center sector has officially entered hyperdrive,” Andy Cvengros, executive managing director at JLL and co-leader of its U.S. data-center business, said in the report. “Record-low vacancy sustained over two consecutive years provides compelling evidence against bubble concerns, especially when nearly all our massive construction pipeline is already pre-committed by investment-grade tenants.”

Dallas-Fort Worth has long dominated the Texas data-center market. But in recent years, West Texas has emerged as a popular territory for building data-center campuses, thanks in large part to an abundance of land and energy. Nearly two-thirds of data-center construction underway now is happening in “frontier markets” like West Texas, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin, the JLL report says.

Northern Virginia, the current data-center champ in the U.S., boasted a data-center market with 6,315 megawatts of capacity at the end of 2025, the report says. That compares with 2,423 megawatts in Dallas-Fort Worth, 1,700 megawatts in the Austin-San Antonio corridor, 200 megawatts in West Texas, and 164 megawatts in Houston.

Fervo taps into its hottest-ever geothermal reservoir

heat record

Things are heating up at Houston-based geothermal power company Fervo Energy.

Fervo recently drilled its hottest well so far at a new geothermal site in western Utah. Fewer than 11 days of drilling more than 11,000 feet deep at Project Blanford showed temperatures above 555 degrees Fahrenheit, which exceeds requirements for commercial viability. Fervo used proprietary AI-driven analytics for the test.

Hotter geothermal reservoirs produce more energy and improve what’s known as energy conversion efficiency, which is the ratio of useful energy output to total energy input.

“Fervo’s exploration strategy has always been underpinned by the seamless integration of cutting-edge data acquisition and advanced analytics,” Jack Norbeck, Fervo’s co-founder and chief technology officer, said in a news release. “This latest ultra-high temperature discovery highlights our team’s ability to detect and develop EGS sweet spots using AI-enhanced geophysical techniques.”

Fervo says an independent review confirms the site’s multigigawatt potential.

The company has increasingly tapped into hotter and hotter geothermal reservoirs, going from 365 degrees at Project Red to 400 degrees at Cape Station and now more than 555 degrees at Blanford.

The new site expands Fervo’s geologic footprint. The Blanford reservoir consists of sedimentary formations such as sandstones, claystones and carbonates, which can be drilled more easily and cost-effectively than more commonly targeted granite formations.

Fervo ranks among the top-funded startups in the Houston area. Since its founding in 2017, the company has raised about $1.5 billion. In January, Fervo filed for an IPO that would value the company at $2 billion to $3 billion, according to Axios Pro.