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Houston-area logistics co. breaks ground on recycling center tied to circularity hub

coming soon

Chambers County has helped fund a new recycling support center in Mont Belvieu that will process post-consumer plastic materials. Photo via Getty Images.

TALKE USA Inc., a Houston-area arm of German logistics company TALKE, broke ground on its new Recycling Support Center in Mont Belvieu Aug. 1.

The facility will process post-consumer plastic materials, which will then be further processed at Cyclyx's new Houston-based Circularity Center, a first-of-its-kind plastic waste sorting and processing facility that was developed through a joint venture between Cyclix, ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell.

The materials will ultimately be converted into recycling feedstock.

“We’re proud to break ground on a facility that reflects our long-term vision for sustainable growth,” Richard Heath, CEO and president of TALKE USA Inc., said in a news release. “This groundbreaking marks an important milestone for our team, our customers, and the Mont Belvieu community.”

The new facility was partially funded by Chambers County, according to the release. The Baytown Sun reports that the county put $1 million towards the construction of the project, which brings advanced recycling and mechanical recycling to the area.

TALKE USA said it plans to share more about the new facility and its impact in the future.

Meanwhile, the Houston-based Cyclyx Circularity Center (CCC1) is slated to open this year and is expected to produce 300 million pounds of custom-formulated feedstock annually. A second circularity center, CCC2, is expected to start up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the second half of 2026. Read more here.

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The Houston area's Cyclyx Circularity Center is one step closer to reality — and more to know this week. Photo courtesy of Cyclyx

Houston plastics circularity center reaches new milestone — and more things to know this week

take note

Editor's note: It's a new week — start it strong with three quick things to catch up on in Houston's energy transition: an event not to miss, a Q&A to check out, and more.

Circular plastics project in Houston takes one more step toward becoming a reality

Cyclyx International, a joint venture that Houston-based ExxonMobil recently bought into with Agilyx and LyondellBasell, announced that it has made a final investment decision to build the first Cyclyx Circularity Center.

"This milestone is evidence of the real progress we are making to increase the circularity of plastic waste as a resource," Joe Vaillancourt, CEO of Cyclyx, says in a news release. "The first-of-its-kind CCC in Houston will serve as a blueprint, which we can replicate across the U.S. to progress our long-term goal of increasing the recycling options for plastic waste. Cyclyx is proud to be an innovator and enabler for unlocking plastic's potential."

Houston organizations ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell have committed $135 million into Cyclyx to fund operating activities and construction costs, which is expected to begin in mid-2025.

Event not to miss

There's one last energy-related event for the year. On December 19, the UH Tech Bridge's Innov8Hub Pitch Day is your last chance of the year to network with industry experts, and discover the next big thing. Register.

Why Cindy Taff is betting on geothermal

There's no silver bullet to the energy transition, but Cindy Taff of Sage Geosystems is pretty positive geothermal energy is going to be a power player in the mix of technologies sure to make a difference. In a Q&A with EnergyCapital, she explains why she's so optimistic about geothermal and her company's technology — and why the traditional oil and gas industries should take note.

"My extensive experience in both geothermal and the O&G sector is a testament to the synergistic relationship between these industries. The skills honed in O&G are not only transferable—they are essential to advancing geothermal technologies," she tells EnergyCapital. She adds that "the O&G industry can make a huge impact to geothermal by systematically driving down costs while scaling up, which is exactly what we did for unconventional shales." Read the full interview.

LyondellBasell bought into a joint venture, Cyclyx International, that was formed in 2020 by Spring-based energy giant ExxonMobil and Tigard, Oregon-based plastic recycling innovator Agilyx. Photo courtesy ExxonMobil

Houston energy company buys in on plastic recycling

Cyclyx secured

Dutch chemical company LyondellBasell, whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston, has purchased a 25 percent stake in a joint venture that seeks to accelerate advancements in plastic recycling.

The joint venture, Cyclyx International, was formed in 2020 by Spring-based energy giant ExxonMobil and Tigard, Oregon-based plastic recycling innovator Agilyx.

In 2022, Cyclyx announced it had inked a deal with ExxonMobil and LyondellBasell to develop a first-of-its-kind plastic waste sorting and processing plant in the Houston area. The estimated $100 million facility, set to open in 2024, is poised to annually produce 330 million pounds of plastic feedstock, which is made up of recycled materials that can be used to manufacture new plastics.

“Investing in plastic waste value chain experts such as Cyclyx, together with Agilyx and ExxonMobil, helps create the robust supply chains we all need to increase access to circular and renewable feedstocks,” Yvonne van der Laan, executive vice president of LyondellBasell, says in a news release.

In conjunction with the LyondellBasell announcement, Cyclyx says it’s expanding the licensing-only model for its recycling centers to add a “build, own, and operate” option. Cyclyx says this shift will enable it to control custom-blended feedstocks from sourcing through delivery.

Last year, Cyclyx revealed it had completed a pilot project for grocery store chain Food Lion.

At the outset of the project, plastic waste at certain Food Lion stores was collected for recycling. Cyclyx then sorted and pre-processed the waste before sending it to ExxonMobil’s recycling facility in Baytown. In Baytown, ExxonMobil used its Exxtend technology for advanced recycling to create new “virgin quality” plastics and other products.

ExxonMobil says the Baytown facility, which began operating in 2021, can process more than 80 million pounds of plastic waste per year. The company says the Exxtend technology it uses there breaks down hard-to-recycle plastic waste — such as synthetic athletic fields, bubble wrap, and motor oil bottles — that previously would have headed to landfills.

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TotalEnergies expands solar joint venture with $1.2B portfolio in Texas, Ohio

solar expansion

TotalEnergies, a French company whose U.S. headquarters is in Houston, announced this month that it is expanding its renewable energy joint venture with New York-based investment firm KKR by adding 700 megawatts of utility-scale solar projects.

The deal will add three utility-scale solar assets in Texas and Ohio, which are expected to reach commercial operation by Q1 2027, according to a news release from the company. The portfolio is valued at $1.2 billion.

The 50/50 joint venture between TotalEnergies and KKR currently holds 1.4 gigawatts of renewable energy and will grow to 2.1 gigawatts.

The new deal is expected to close this year. Once completed, TotalEnergies will operate the assets. The electricity generated from the solar projects will be sold to third parties, the company reports.

The companies originally formed the joint venture about a year ago when TotalEnergies sold KKR a 50 percent stake in a North American solar portfolio valued at $1.25 billion. The deal originally included six utility-scale solar assets, primarily located in the U.S.

“TotalEnergies is a renewable energy industry leader globally, and we are thrilled to establish this joint venture with the TotalEnergies team to support their renewables business," Cecilio Velasco, managing director KKR, said in a release last year. “We have long been investors in renewables through our infrastructure platform, having committed more than $23 billion to date in energy transition investments. TotalEnergies’ North American solar portfolio is a great fit for us, representing high-quality renewable energy assets with long term contracts.”

TotalEnergies reports that by June 2026 it held more than 37 gigawatts of gross renewable power generation capacity. It aims to achieve over 100 terawatt-hours of net electricity production by 2030.

The company signed a major power purchase agreement with Google earlier this year. Through the deal, TotalEnergies will supply the tech giant with 1 gigawatt of solar power for its data centers in Texas over a 15-year span.

However, the company also recently redirected nearly $1 billion in capital away from wind energy projects and "decided to renounce offshore wind development in the United States." Read more here.

Houston researchers develop compact carbon capture tech for data centers

AI emissions

Two scientists from the University of Houston have been experimenting with new carbon capture systems that fit inside a standard shipping container, which have the potential to make eliminating carbon output from industrial sites much easier.

The capture of industrial carbon is an important complement to the fight against climate change, as well as winning tax credits for businesses that use carbon capture technology.

The problem is that such systems are often measured in acres, making them expensive to build and extremely power-hungry to actually use. UH Engineering Professor Mim Rahimi and former UH Ph.D. student Ahmad Hassan (now a postdoctoral associate at Harvard) have managed to fit their new system, the Small Modular Electrochemical Container (SMECs), inside a standard 40-foot shipping crate, making them compact and modular enough to be installed almost anywhere for operations of all sizes. Their research was recently published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

“With a conventional system, you’re building a 130-foot-tall structure designed for a specific power plant. With our technology, we can adjust the capacity by simply turning containers on or off,” Rahimi said in a news release. “That flexibility is particularly important for data centers, where electricity can come from a combination of natural gas and renewable sources.”

Rahimi and Hassan used simulated gas models to show that under optimal conditions, the SMEC used electrochemically mediated amine regeneration (EMAR) cells developed in Rahimi’s lab to capture 90 percent of carbon under optimal conditions through 300 cycles over 50 hours.

Encouraged, the team then modeled a 360-megawatt natural gas power plant associated with OpenAI’s Stargate AI data center project in Abilene, Texas. In addition to the savings on infrastructure costs, 20 of the researchers’ shipping container systems were able to capture 98 percent of carbon from Stargate’s 875-acre campus based on the model.

The looming energy costs and subsequent carbon emissions from data centers are a real concern. Estimates from the U.S. Department of Energy hypothesize that 12 percent of America’s energy needs could be gobbled up by the centers as soon as 2028. That is a massive new source of carbon. The flexibility of the SMEC means they can be deployed wherever the centers spring up.

“We’re taking a technology that traditionally requires enormous infrastructure and finding a way to fit it inside a shipping container,” Rahimi added in the release. “That opens up entirely new possibilities for how and where carbon capture systems can be used.”

In the future, the researchers say they plan to look at ways to adapt the technology to capture carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere.

Hertha Metals breaks ground on $100M high-purity iron factory in Conroe

coming soon

Shortly after announcing a $133.65 Series A funding round, Conroe-based Hertha Metals broke ground Oct. 8 on a $100 million factory that will produce steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron.

Hertha’s Chalyx plant, located in Conroe, will manufacture a total of about 10,000 metric tons per year of magnet-grade and steel-grade high-purity iron. The factory will use Hertha’s single-step process to generate high-purity iron for rare-earth-magnet and steel manufacturers in the U.S.

Hertha says Chalyx will be the first U.S. commercial plant for production of magnet-grade high-purity iron.

Chalyx is being built next to Hertha’s headquarters and its Pi100 pilot plant, which will remain in operation. Chalyx and Pi100 will form the first modern-day iron and steel “innovation complex” in the U.S., the company says.

“I founded Hertha Metals because I believed we could significantly improve how the world makes iron and steel from ore, and that an industry so fundamental to our future still had enormous room for invention,” Laureen Meroueh, founder and CEO of Hertha, said in a press release.

The 4-year-old startup says the Chalyx complex will lay the foundation for its first 500,000-ton-per-year steel mill.

Chalyx’s first priority is making high-purity iron for U.S. manufacturers of rare-earth magnets, Hertha says. These magnets are critical components for electric vehicles, data centers, wind turbines and defense systems.

China produces an estimated 94 percent of high-purity iron for rare-earth magnets, according to Hertha.

Aside from iron for rare-earth magnets, Chalyx will make iron and steel for pilot projects in the steel industry.

The plant is expected to come online in late 2027, with production of magnet-grade high-purity iron starting in early 2028.

Today, Hertha employs 32 people, the company says. Once it’s fully operating, the Chalyx plant will employ about 50 people.

Just ahead of the groundbreaking, Hertha announced the $133.65 million Series A round, co-led by Khosla Ventures and Doerr Capital. The round included a $65 million equity investment from the Pentagon.

“Iron and steel have shaped human progress for thousands of years. And I believe there is still an enormous amount left to invent,” Meroueh said at the groundbreaking ceremony.

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