Houston energy transition events not to miss, expert commentary on climate crisis, and more things to know

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Houston energy transition folks — here's what to know to start your week. Photo via Getty Images

Editor's note: Start your week off strong with three quick things to catch up on in Houston's energy transition: a roundup of events not to miss, a new Houston energy executive to know, and more.

Events not to miss

Put these Houston-area energy-related events on your calendar.

Future of Energy Summit is Tuesday, February 6, at AC Hotel by Marriott Houston Downtown. Register.
The 2024 NAPE Summit is Wednesday, February 7, to Friday, February 9, at the George R. Brown Convention Center. It's the energy industry’s marketplace for the buying, selling and trading of prospects and producing properties. Register.
The De Lange Conference, taking place February 9 and 10 at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, is centered around the theme “Brave New Worlds: Who Decides? Research, Risk and Responsibility” this year. Register.
The Future of Energy Across the Americas: Helping Lawyers Predict and Adapt — the 2024 Houston Energy Conference — is February 27 to March 1. Register.
CERAWeek 2024 is Monday, March 18, to Friday, March 22, in the George R. Brown Convention Center. Register.

Commentary: Chris Wood, co-founder of Moonshot Compost, on loving the climate apocalypse

Chris Wood knows that the last thing anyone wants to be reminded of in 2024 is the impending climate apocalypse, but, as he writes in his guest column, "There is a scientific consensus that the world climate is trending towards uninhabitable for many species, including humans, due in large part to results of human activity."

He cites a report that 93 percent “believe that climate change poses a serious and imminent threat to the planet.”

"Until recently reviewing this report, I was unaware that 93 percent of any of us could agree on anything," he writes. "It got me thinking, how much of our problem today is based on misunderstanding both the nature of the problem and the solution?" Read more.

New hire: Bracewell names new partner to advise clients on energy transition tax incentives

Bracewell announced that Jennifer Speck has joined the firm's tax department as a partner in the Houston office. Speck will advise clients on energy transition tax incentives.

Some of her experiences include onshore and offshore wind, solar, carbon capture, clean hydrogen and clean fuel projects. She recently served as senior manager of tax and regulatory compliance at Navigator CO2 Ventures LLC. She graduated in 2010 with a B.F.A. in mental health psychology from Northeastern State University, and received her J.D., with honors, from The University of Tulsa College of Law in 2012. Read more.

The De Lange Conference is taking place February 9 and 10 at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. Photo by Gustavo Raskosky/Rice University

Upcoming Houston conference to address biology, technology and climate change

on the radar

Every other year, Rice University hosts a conference that addresses "issues of great concern to society," and this year will look at the intersection of technology, biology, and climate change.

The De Lange Conference, taking place February 9 and 10 at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy, is centered around the theme “Brave New Worlds: Who Decides? Research, Risk and Responsibility” this year. Chaired by Luis Campos, Baker College Chair for the History of Science, Technology and Innovation, the conference is an initiative of Rice’s faculty-led consortium Scientia Institute.

“We wanted to have a broad topic that would connect a lot of different disciplines and parts of campus,” Campos says in a news release. “Synthetic biology, the uses of data, climate change—whatever our field, job or profession, we have all heard of these things, and we all want to know more about them. So we’re bringing in scholars, scientists and artists to think about how these frontiers of scientific innovation and research relate to larger social contexts.

“Everybody is concerned with the future of their health, the future of their society, the future of the climate that they live in and the future of how their data is being used. This is a conference that weaves all those realms together with forms of artistic intervention and creative practice.”

Rice’s De Lange Conference explores future of synthetic biology, data technology and climate changewww.youtube.com

Attendees of the event can anticipate two days of discussions led by thought leaders, artistic interventions, screenings, and more from a roster of scientists, researchers, scholars, and artists. The full schedule is listed online.

The event is free to attend, but registration is required.

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Rice, UH join major quantum, nuclear energy initiatives

energy impact

Rice University and the University of Houston will be playing a part in the future of energy in Texas and beyond, as Rice has joined the U.S. Department of Energy Quantum Science Center and UH has been added to the Texas Nuclear Alliance.

Rice’s role with the DOE Quantum Science Center will expand the university’s work in helping to develop “fault-tolerant quantum computers capable of solving scientific problems,” according to Rice. Tirthak Patel, an assistant professor of computer science, will develop and evaluate quantum error-correction decoding methods on high-performance computing platforms. Patel’s team will receive $900,000 over 5 years from a DOE-funded center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

The Quantum Science Center was established in 2020 under the National Quantum Initiative Act, and brings together national laboratories, universities and industry partners like IBM, AMD, IQM, Quantinuum and Riverlane, and others to advance quantum information science. The Quantum Science Center is one of the DOE’s five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers, and has planned funding of $125 million over 5 years.

“Reliable error correction is one of the biggest challenges in making quantum computing useful for accelerating scientific discovery,” Patel said in a news release. “Our work is focused on developing methods that can scale to future systems and support practical scientific applications.”

Meanwhile, as power demand continues to rise in Texas and North America, the Texas Nuclear Alliance brings industry, academic, and government leaders together to advance nuclear technologies to meet growing energy demands, support economic efforts, bolster domestic manufacturing, and protect overall energy security.

UH brings expertise to the Texas Nuclear Alliance from UH Energy, the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH (TcSUH), and the Advanced Manufacturing Institute (AMI). UH says that 11 of its 16 colleges will contribute research to the alliance.

“Texas and the University of Houston have long led the nation in energy innovation and research,” Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president of energy and innovation, said in a news release. “As demand for reliable, affordable and secure energy continues to grow, advanced nuclear technologies will become increasingly important. The University of Houston is uniquely positioned to contribute through world-class research and deep industry partnerships that help transform breakthrough discoveries into real-world solutions. We look forward to working with the Texas Nuclear Alliance to accelerate technologies that will shape the future of the energy industry.”

Projects from both Rice and UH were selected this week to participate in the DOE's Genesis Mission. Read more here.

4 Houston researchers awarded projects in DOE's Genesis Mission

federal funding

The U.S. Department of Energy has named the nearly 300 projects selected under the Trump Administration's Genesis Mission, which aims to address some of the largest science and technology challenges in the country. The group features four projects from Houston universities and companies.

The initiative aims to unite government, industry, academia and philanthropy to lead to breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security, according to a release.

The selected projects feature 87 led by DOE and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) National Laboratories, 168 led by universities, 19 led by companies and 4 led by nonprofit organizations—totalling 342 participating institutions.

“America has no shortage of bold ideas or talented scientists, and the response to the Genesis Mission proves that,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said in a news release. “The 278 projects selected today represent the very best of our nation’s scientific enterprise. The remarkable number of high-quality proposals we received demonstrates that America’s innovation pipeline is strong, and it points to even greater opportunities for future investment and continued expansion of the Genesis Mission portfolio.”

Twelve Texas-based projects were selected among the 278. The Houston projects and their researchers include:

Caroline Ajo-Franklin

Ajo-Franklin recieved a Phase I grant for her project "Predictive AI to Map Point Mutation Effects on Protein Function: Measurement and Biosynthesis of Isoprenoids." Ajo-Franklin is a professor of biosciences at Rice University, a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research and member of the Rice Synthetic Biology Institute. The project aims to accelerate the engineering of microbes that can produce isoprenoids, which are natural compounds that could replace petroleum-derived fuels, solvents and materials.

“This project creates a continuous feedback loop in which AI guides experiments and each experiment generates more detailed data to better hone the AI model,” Ajo-Franklin said in a news release. “In addition, it demonstrates the extraordinary star power Rice has recruited in protein engineering and synthetic biology.”

Anastasios Kyrillidis

Kyrillidis recived a Phase I grant for his project "Cracking the VQA Optimization Bottleneck: AI Methods for Quantum Chemistry and Materials." Kyrillidis is the Noah Harding Associate Professor of Computer Science at Rice and a member of the Ken Kennedy Institute. The project aims to develop AI tools to resolve bottlenecks in quantum computing for chemistry and materials research.

“Our goal is to replace fragile, hand-tuned optimization methods with intelligent systems that can learn from quantum computations while still operating within frameworks that provide strong mathematical guarantees,” Kyrillidis added in the release.

Myoungkyu Lee

Lee received a nearly $750,000 Phase I grant for his project "Physics-Informed AI Surrogates for Turbulent Forced Convection in Energy System." Lee is an assistant professor of mechanical aerospace engineering at the University of Houston. Lee will collaborate with researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and University of Pennsylvania on the project and develop artificial intelligence to accelerate the design of materials for advanced nuclear fission and fusion reactors.

“The goal is to develop a tool that runs much faster than today’s most detailed simulations while keeping errors small,” Lee said in a news release. “If successful, the approach could support better heat-transfer predictions for molten-salt reactor design and provide a starting point for studying heat removal in fusion blankets. This is one contribution among many toward reliable, carbon-free energy.”

Amit Padhi

Padhi recieved a grant for his project "Probabilistic Inference of Subsurface Fracture Connectivity for Stimulation Control with Physics-Informed AI." Padhi is a scientific advisor for Halliburton.

The DOE first called for applications for the Genesis Mission in March. At the time, the DOE shared that it would grant approximately $293 million to the selected teams via Phase I awards, ranging from $500,000 to $750,000 for nine-month project periods, and Phase II awards, for $6 million to $15 million over a three-year project period.

Since then, however, the initiative has grown with 15 federal agencies now granting research awards and funding opportunities under the Genesis umbrella. The White House announced this week that it had secured more than $5 billion in federal commitments to expand the initiative.

SLB teams with Liberty Energy on modular power for AI data centers

ai alliance

Houston-headquartered SLB and Denver-based Liberty Energy Inc. announced a strategic agreement this month to support the rapid growth of new data center capacity.

Under the agreement, SLB will supply modular data center infrastructure and oversee large-scale execution, while Liberty will provide modular power generation systems and behind-the-meter power management technology for developers looking to add capacity. According to Reuters, the power will come from natural gas generation.

“The bottleneck in AI infrastructure is no longer just compute. It is the ability to deliver infrastructure and power on the timelines the market now demands,” Gavin Rennick, president of SLB’s New Energy and Industrial business, said in a news release. “By bringing together complementary infrastructure and power capabilities, we will help developers accelerate deployment of new data center capacity.”

The companies seek to specifically offer the modular technologies in areas without traditional grid connections or where grid capacity is limited.

They also aim to improve the "efficiency, flexibility and environmental performance of future data center energy systems," potentially through solutions like hybrid power systems and digital energy management, according to the news release.

Goldman Sachs estimates that U.S. data center capacity will more than double from 31 gigawatts in 2025 to 66 gigawatts in 2027. Other reports predict that Houston and Texas will be home to a significant portion of the data center boom, with capacity in the city and the state also expected to double in the next few years.

“The scale and complexity of AI energy infrastructure is fundamentally changing how power systems are built and deployed,” Ron Gusek, CEO of Liberty Energy, added in the release. “Liberty’s comprehensive power service platform is engineered to meet this transition, as customers increasingly prioritize tailored, integrated solutions. Building on our long-standing relationship with SLB, we are excited to bring power solutions that address immediate capacity constraints while supporting the next generation of energy systems.”

SLB sold its onshore hydraulic fracturing business in the United States and Canada to Liberty Energy in December 2020 in exchange for a 37 percent equity interest in the company.

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