Two Texas companies will deliver crude oil from Dec. 1 through Jan. 31 to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest emergency supply of crude oil. Photo via Getty Images
Two companies with ties to the Houston area have been awarded federal contracts totaling nearly $55.8 million to supply about 1 million barrels of crude oil for the nation’s depleted Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Houston-based Trafigura Trading will provide two-thirds of the oil, and Dallas-based Energy Transfer Crude Marketing will provide the remaining one-third. Energy Transfer, the parent company of Energy Transfer Crude Marketing, operates a 330-acre oil terminal at the Houston Ship Channel.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which awarded the contracts, said Trafigura and Energy Transfer will deliver the crude oil from Dec. 1 through Jan. 31 to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve’s Bryan Mound storage site near Freeport.
The Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest emergency supply of crude oil, can hold up to 714 million barrels of crude oil across 61 underground salt caverns at four sites along the Gulf Coast. The reserve currently contains 410 million barrels of crude oil. During the pandemic, the Biden administration ordered a 180 million-barrel drawdown from the reserve to help combat high gas prices triggered by Russia’s war with Ukraine.
The four strategic reserve sites are connected to 24 Gulf Coast refineries, and another six refineries in Kentucky, Michigan and Ohio.
“Awarding these contracts marks another step in the important process of refilling this national security asset,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.
In March, Wright estimated it would take $20 billion and many years to fill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to its maximum capacity, according to Reuters
The Texas A&M University System and Last Energy plan to launch a micro-nuclear reactor pilot project next summer at the Texas A&M-RELLIS technology and innovation campus in Bryan.
Washington, D.C.-based Last Energy will build a 5-megawatt reactor that’s a scaled-down version of its 20-megawatt reactor. The micro-reactor initially will aim to demonstrate safety and stability, and test the ability to generate electricity for the grid.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) fast-tracked the project under its New Reactor Pilot Program. The project will mark Last Energy’s first installation of a nuclear reactor in the U.S.
Private funds are paying for the project, which Robert Albritton, chairman of the Texas A&M system’s board of regents, said is “an example of what’s possible when we try to meet the needs of the state and tap into the latest technologies.”
Glenn Hegar, chancellor of the Texas A&M system, said the 5-megawatt reactor is the kind of project the system had in mind when it built the 2,400-acre Texas A&M-RELLIS campus.
The project is “bold, it’s forward-looking, and it brings together private innovation and public research to solve today’s energy challenges,” Hegar said.
As it gears up to build the reactor, Last Energy has secured a land lease at Texas A&M-RELLIS, obtained uranium fuel, and signed an agreement with DOE. Founder and CEO Bret Kugelmass said the project will usher in “the next atomic era.”
In February, John Sharp, chancellor of Texas A&M’s flagship campus, said the university had offered land at Texas A&M-RELLIS to four companies to build small modular nuclear reactors. Power generated by reactors at Texas A&M-RELLIS may someday be supplied to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) grid.
Also in February, Last Energy announced plans to develop 30 micro-nuclear reactors at a 200-acre site about halfway between Lubbock and Fort Worth.
The Clean Hydrogen Buyers Alliance plans to create the Gulf Coast Hydrogen Index to bring to bring transparency and confidence to hydrogen pricing. Photo via Getty Images
The Clean Hydrogen Buyers Alliance has proposed an index aimed at bringing transparency to pricing in the emerging hydrogen market.
The Houston-based alliance said the Gulf Coast Hydrogen Index, based on real-time data, would provide more clarity to pricing in the global market for hydrogen. The benchmarking effort is being designed to benefit clean hydrogen buyers, sellers and investors. The index would help position the U.S. “as the trading anchor for hydrogen’s next chapter as a globally traded commodity,” the alliance said.
According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, the global market for clean hydrogen was valued at $200 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $700 billion by 2040.
John Flory, president of the alliance, said the lack of a pricing index has relegated hydrogen to niche-market status.
“Capital is waiting. Buyers are ready. But until now, there’s been no credible, transparent pricing signal to guide clean hydrogen investing or contracting,” Edward Morse, co-chairman of the Clean Hydrogen Transaction Advisory Committee, said in a news release.
The index would treat the Gulf Coast as the primary delivery hub for pipeline-grade hydrogen in three categories: basic, low-carbon and ultra-low-carbon. It would be similar to the Henry Hub index for pricing of natural gas.
Roger Ballentine, co-chairman of the clean energy advisory committee, said the hydrogen index would build confidence in this energy source among government agencies, companies and investors. A Henry Hub-style benchmark for hydrogen “provides clarity, reduces risk, and lays the foundation for clean energy to become a globally traded commodity critical to decarbonization,” he said.
At the core of the Gulf Coast’s role is the U.S. Department of Energy's selection of the Gulf Coast as one of the country’s seven regional hubs for clean hydrogen. However, the DOE has proposed cutting funding for the HyVelocity Gulf Coast Hydrogen Hub, a $1.2 billion development in Texas and Louisiana by AES, Air Liquide, Chevron, ExxonMobil, MHI Hydrogen Infrastructure and Ørsted, according to a new list of proposed DOE funding cancellations.
A list of proposed DOE funding cancellations shows potential cuts for Houston-area companies. Photo via Getty Images.
The U.S. Department of Energy has proposed cutting $1.2 billion in funding for the HyVelocity Gulf Coast Hydrogen Hub, a clean energy project backed by AES, Air Liquide, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Mitsubishi Power Americas and Ørsted.
Other than the six main corporate backers, supporters of HyVelocity include the Center for Houston’s Future, Houston Advanced Research Center, Port Houston, University of Texas at Austin, Shell, the Texas governor’s office, Texas congressional delegation, and the City of Fort Worth.
Kristine Cone, a spokeswoman for GTI Energy, the hub’s administrator, told EnergyCapital that it hadn’t gotten an update from DOE about the hub’s status.
The list also shows the Magnolia Sequestration Hub in Louisiana, being developed by Occidental Petroleum subsidiary 1PointFive, could lose nearly $19.8 million in federal funding and the subsidiary’s South Texas Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hub on the King Ranch in Kleberg County could lose $50 million. In September, 1Point5 announced the $50 million award for its South Texas hub would be the first installment of up to $500 million in federal funding for the project.
Other possible DOE funding losses for Houston-area companies on the list include:
A little over $100 million earmarked for Houston-based BP Carbon Solutions to develop carbon storage projects
$100 million earmarked for Dow to produce battery-grade solvents for lithium-ion batteries. Dow operates chemical plants in Deer Park and LaPorte
$39 million earmarked for Daikin Comfort Technologies North America to produce energy-efficient heat pumps. The HVAC company operates the Daikin Texas Technology Park in Waller
Nearly $6 million earmarked for Houston-based Baker Hughes Energy Transition to reduce methane emissions from flares
$3 million earmarked for Spring-based Chevron to explore development of a DAC hub in Northern California
Nearly $2.9 million earmarked for Houston-based geothermal energy startup Fervo Energy’s geothermal plant in Utah
U.S. Rep. Morgan Luttrell, a Magnolia Republican, and Hertha Metals founder and CEO Laureen Meroueh toured Hertha’s Conroe plant in August. Photo courtesy Hertha Metals/Business Wire.
Conroe-based Hertha Metals, a producer of substantial steel, has hauled in more than $17 million in venture capital from Khosla Ventures, Breakthrough Energy Fellows, Pear VC, Clean Energy Ventures and other investors.
The money has been put toward the construction and the launch of its 1-metric-ton-per-day pilot plant in Conroe, where its breakthrough in steelmaking has been undergoing tests. The company uses a single-step process that it claims is cheaper, more energy-efficient and equally as scalable as conventional steelmaking methods. The plant is fueled by natural gas or hydrogen.
The company, founded in 2022, plans to break ground early next year on a new plant. The facility will be able to produce more than 9,000 metric tons of steel per year.
Hertha said in a news release that its process, which converts low-grade iron ore into molten steel or high-purity iron, “doesn’t just materially lower cost and energy use — it fundamentally expands our capacity to produce iron and steel at scale, by unlocking a wider range of iron ore feedstocks.”
Laureen Meroueh, founder and CEO of Hertha, says the company’s process will fill a gap in U.S. steel production.
“We’re not just reinventing steelmaking; we’re redefining what’s possible in materials, manufacturing, and national resilience,” Meroueh says.
Hertha says it’s in talks with magnet producers — which make permanent magnets and magnetic assemblies from raw materials such as iron — to become a U.S. supplier of high-purity iron. In its next stage of growth, Hertha will aim to operate at a capacity of 500,000 metric tons of steel production per year.
The company won the Department of Energy's Summer Energy Program for Innovation Clusters (EPIC) Startup Pitch Competition last summer. Read more here.
A new report from the Department of Energy says the risk of power blackouts will be 100 times greater in 2030. Photo via Getty Images.
Scheduled retirements of traditional power plants, dependence on energy sources like wind and solar, and the growth of energy-gobbling data centers put the U.S. — including Texas — at much greater risk of massive power outages just five years from now, a new U.S. Department of Energy report suggests.
The report says the U.S. power grid won’t be able to sustain the combined impact of plant closures, heavy reliance on renewable energy, and the boom in data center construction. As a result, the risk of power blackouts will be 100 times greater in 2030, according to the report.
“The status quo of more [plant] retirements and less dependable replacement generation is neither consistent with winning the AI race and ensuring affordable energy for all Americans, nor with continued grid reliability … . Absent intervention, it is impossible for the nation’s bulk power system to meet the AI growth requirements while maintaining a reliable power grid and keeping energy costs low for our citizens,” the report says.
Avoiding planned shutdowns of traditional energy plants, such as those fueled by coal and oil, would improve grid reliability, but a shortfall would still persist in the territory served by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), particularly during the winter, the report says. ERCOT operates the power grid for the bulk of Texas.
According to the report, 104 gigawatts of U.S. power capacity from traditional plants is set to be phased out by 2030. “This capacity is not being replaced on a one-to-one basis,” says the report, “and losing this generation could lead to significant outages when weather conditions do not accommodate wind and solar generation.”
To meet reliability targets, ERCOT would need 10,500 megawatts of additional “perfect” capacity by 2030, the report says. Perfect capacity refers to maximum power output under ideal conditions.
“ERCOT continues to undergo rapid change, and supply additions will have a difficult time keeping up with demand growth,” Brent Nelson, managing director of markets and strategy at Ascend Analytics, a provider of data and analytics for the energy sector, said in a release earlier this summer. “With scarcity conditions ongoing and weather-dependent, expect a volatile market with boom years and bust years.”
Veolia, a Boston-based company with major operations in Texas, is purchasing hazardous-waste company Clean Earth from Enviri as part of a $3 billion deal.
Veolia is a private water operator, technology provider and hazardous waste and pollution treatment company that operates a large hazardous waste treatment and incineration facility in Port Arthur. Hazardous waste treatment is a growing sector as the clean energy, semiconductor manufacturing, healthcare and pharmaceutical industries generate high levels of waste that need to be handled safely.
Acquiring Clean Earth’s 82 facilities, which include 19 EPA-permitted sites, will expand Veolia’s reach into 10 new states and will position the company as the second-largest hazardous waste operator in the U.S., according to a news release. The deal is Veolia’s sixth and largest North American acquisition of 2025.
“(The acquisition) allows us to unlock the full value potential of our U.S. hazardous waste activities and to double our size on this critical, fast-growing sector, creating a No. 2 player,” Estelle Brachlianoff, CEO of Veolia, said in a news release. “We reinforce our global capacities in hazardous waste and further increase our international footprint.”
Veolia’s Port Arthur facility specializes in servicing generators with large-volume waste treatment requirements.
The transaction is expected to close mid-2026. Veolia hopes the increased exposure into industries such as retail and healthcare will help to offer a full range of environmental services across the U.S.
“This continued transformation of our portfolio enhances the growth profile and strength of our group, uniquely positioned to tackle the sustained demand for environmental security,” Brachlianoff added in the release.
Houston’s Reliant and San Francisco tech company GoodLeap are teaming up to bolster residential battery participation and accelerate the growth of NRG’s virtual power plant (VPP) network in Texas.
Through the new partnership, eligible Reliant customers can either lease a battery or enter into a power purchase agreement with GoodLeap through its GoodGrid program, which incentivises users by offering monthly performance-based rewards for contributing stored power to the grid. Through the Reliant GoodLeap VPP Battery Program, customers will start earning $40 per month in rewards from GoodLeap.
“These incentives highlight our commitment to making homeowner battery adoption more accessible, effectively offsetting the cost of the battery and making the upgrade a no-cost addition to their homes,” Dan Lotano, COO at GoodLeap, said in a news release.“We’re proud to work with NRG to unlock the next frontier in distributed energy in Texas. This marks an important step in GoodLeap reaching our nationwide goal of 1.5 GW of managed distributed energy over the next five years.”
Other features of the program include power outage plans, with battery reserves set aside for outage events. The plan also intelligently manages the battery without homeowner interaction.
The partnership comes as Reliant’s parent company, NRG, continues to scale its VPP program. Last year, NRG partnered with California-based Renew Home to distribute hundreds of thousands of VPP-enabled smart thermostats by 2035 in an effort to help households manage and lower their energy costs.
“We started building our VPP with smart thermostats across Texas, and now this partnership with GoodLeap brings home battery storage into our platform,” Mark Parsons, senior vice president and head of Texas energy at NRG, said in a the release. “Each time we add new devices, we’re enabling Texans to unlock new value from their homes, earn rewards and help build a more resilient grid for everyone. This is about giving customers the opportunity to actively participate in the energy transition and receive tangible benefits for themselves and their communities.
Corrosion is not something most people think about, but for Houston's industrial backbone pipelines, refineries, chemical plants, and water infrastructure, it is a silent and costly threat. Replacing damaged steel and overusing chemicals adds hundreds of millions of tons of carbon emissions every year. Despite the scale of the problem, corrosion detection has barely changed in decades.
In a recent episode of the Energy Tech Startups Podcast, Anwar Sadek, founder and CEO of Corrolytics, explained why the traditional approach is not working and how his team is delivering real-time visibility into one of the most overlooked challenges in the energy transition.
From Lab Insight to Industrial Breakthrough
Anwar began as a researcher studying how metals degrade and how microbes accelerate corrosion. He quickly noticed a major gap. Companies could detect the presence of microorganisms, but they could not tell whether those microbes were actually causing corrosion or how quickly the damage was happening. Most tests required shipping samples to a lab and waiting months for results, long after conditions inside the asset had changed.
That gap inspired Corrolytics' breakthrough. The company developed a portable, real-time electrochemical test that measures microbial corrosion activity directly from fluid samples. No invasive probes. No complex lab work. Just the immediate data operators can act on.
“It is like switching from film to digital photography,” Anwar says. “What used to take months now takes a couple of hours.”
Why Corrosion Matters in Houston's Energy Transition
Houston's energy transition is a blend of innovation and practicality. While the world builds new low-carbon systems, the region still depends on existing industrial infrastructure. Keeping those assets safe, efficient, and emission-conscious is essential.
This is where Corrolytics fits in. Every leak prevented, every pipeline protected, and every unnecessary gallon of biocide avoided reduces emissions and improves operational safety. The company is already seeing interest across oil and gas, petrochemicals, water and wastewater treatment, HVAC, industrial cooling, and biofuels. If fluids move through metal, microbial corrosion can occur, and Corrolytics can detect it.
Because microbes evolve quickly, slow testing methods simply cannot keep up. “By the time a company gets lab results, the environment has changed completely,” Anwar explains. “You cannot manage what you cannot measure.”
A Scientist Steps Into the CEO Role
Anwar did not plan to become a CEO. But through the National Science Foundation's ICorps program, he interviewed more than 300 industry stakeholders. Over 95 percent cited microbial corrosion as a major issue with no effective tool to address it. That validation pushed him to transform his research into a product.
Since then, Corrolytics has moved from prototype to real-world pilots in Brazil and Houston, with early partners already using the technology and some preparing to invest. Along the way, Anwar learned to lead teams, speak the language of industry, and guide the company through challenges. “When things go wrong, and they do, it is the CEO's job to steady the team,” he says.
Why Houston
Relocating to Houston accelerated everything. Customers, partners, advisors, and manufacturing talent are all here. For industrial and energy tech startups, Houston offers an ecosystem built for scale.
What's Next
Corrolytics is preparing for broader pilots, commercial partnerships, and team growth as it continues its fundraising efforts. For anyone focused on asset integrity, emissions reduction, or industrial innovation, this is a company to watch.
Energy Tech Startups Podcast is hosted by Jason Ethier and Nada Ahmed. It delves into Houston's pivotal role in the energy transition, spotlighting entrepreneurs and industry leaders shaping a low-carbon future.
