Houston organization proposes Gulf Coast index for hydrogen market

hydrogen index

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.

The Gulf Coast, with Texas as the focal point, is key to the evolution of the U.S. clean hydrogen economy, according to the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Energy Association.

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.

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Rice Wind Energy had a strong showing at the DOE's 2025 Collegiate Wind Competition. Photo courtesy Rice University.

Houston students take home top prizes at DOE wind energy competition

wind winners

The student-led Rice Wind Energy team clinched second place overall at the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2025 Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC), which challenges students nationwide to design and build wind turbines, develop wind energy projects and engage in public outreach to promote renewable energy.

“The Collegiate Wind Competition is such an incredible opportunity for students passionate about sustainability to gain industry-applicable, hands-on experience in the renewable energy space,” senior and team vice president Jason Yang said in a news release.

The event was hosted by the National Renewable Energy Laboratories at the University of Colorado Boulder campus. Over 40 teams entered the competition, with just 12 advancing to the final stage. The competition comprises four core contests: connection creation, turbine design, turbine testing and project development.

Rice Wind Energy had the largest team with 26 students advancing to the final stage of the competition. It picked up a first-place win in the connection creation contest, and also placed third in the project development, fourth in turbine testing and fifth in turbine design contests.

“This accomplishment is a testament to our focus, teamwork and unwavering determination,” senior Esther Fahel, Rice Wind Energy’s 2024-25 president, said in a news release. “It’s a remarkable experience to have watched this team progress from its inception to the competition podium. The passion and drive of Rice students is so palpable.”

In the Connection Creation contest, the team hosted a wind energy panel with Texas Tech University, invited local high school students to campus for educational activities, produced a series of Instagram reels to address wind energy misconceptions and launched its first website.

The team also developed an autonomous wind turbine and floating foundation design that successfully produced over 20 watts of power in the wind tunnel. They were also one of just a few teams to complete the rigorous safety test, which brought their turbine to below 10 percent of its operational speed within 10 seconds of pressing an emergency stop button. It also designed a 450-megawatt floating wind farm located 38 kilometers off the coast of Oregon by using a multi-decision criteria matrix to select the optimal site, and conducted technical modeling.

“I am amazed at the team’s growth in impact and collaboration over the past year,” senior Ava Garrelts, the team’s Connection Creation lead for 2024-25, said in a news release. “It has been incredible to see our members develop their confidence by building tangible skills and lifelong connections. We are all honored to receive recognition for our work, but the entire experience has been just as rewarding.”

Rice faculty and industry sponsors included David Trevas and faculty advisers Gary Woods and Jose Moreto, Knape Associates, Hartzell Air Movement, NextEra Analytics, RWE Clean Energy, H&H Business Development and GE Vernova, Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen, George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, Rice Engineering Alumni and Rice Center for Engineering Leadership.

The BYU Wind Energy Team took home the overall first-place prize. A team from the University of Texas at Dallas was the only other Texas-based team to make the 12-team finals.

Rice professor and Solidec co-founder Haotian Wang's research enables CO2 to be converted into valuable chemicals and fuels. Photo courtesy Welch Foundation.

Houston clean energy pioneer earns prestigious Welch Foundation award

Awards Season

A Rice University professor has earned a prestigious award from the Houston-based Welch Foundation, which supports chemistry research.

The foundation gave its 2025 Norman Hackerman Award in Chemical Research to Haotian Wang for his “exceptionally creative” research involving carbon dioxide electrochemistry. His research enables CO2 to be converted into valuable chemicals and fuels.

The award included $100,000 and a bronze sculpture.

“Dr. Wang’s extensive body of work and rigorous pursuit of efficient electrochemical solutions to practical problems set him apart as a top innovator among early-career researchers,” Catherine Murphy, chairwoman of the foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board, said in a news release.

Wang is an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Rice. The department’s Wang Group develops nanomaterials and electrolyzers for energy and environmental uses, such as energy storage, chemical and fuel generation, green synthesis and water treatment.

Wang also is co-founder of Solidec, a Houston startup that aims to turn his innovations into low-carbon fuels, carbon-negative hydrogen and carbon-neutral peroxide. The startup extracts molecules from water and air, then transforms them into pure chemicals and fuels that are free of carbon emissions.

Solidec has been selected for Chevron Technology Ventures’ catalyst program, a Rice One Small Step grant, a U.S. Department of Energy grant, and the first cohort of the Activate Houston program.

“Dr. Wang’s use of electrochemistry to close the carbon cycle and develop renewable sources of industrial chemicals directly intersects with the Welch Foundation mission of advancing chemistry while improving life,” Fred Brazelton, chairman and director of the Welch Foundation, said in the release.

Ramamoorthy Ramesh, executive vice president for research at Rice University, added: “We are proud to (Dr. Wang) at Rice. He’s using chemical engineering to solve a big problem for humanity, everything that the Welch Foundation stands for.”

Last year, the Hackerman Award went to Baylor College of Medicine's Livia Schiavinato Eberlin, who's known for her groundbreaking work in the application of mass spectrometry technologies, which are changing how physicians treat cancer and analyze tissues. Read more here.

The university will use the grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a cost-effective, sustainable method for extracting rare earth elements from electronic waste. Photo via Getty Images

Texas A&M awarded $1.3M federal grant to develop clean energy tech from electronic waste

seeing green

Texas A&M University in College Station has received a nearly $1.3 million federal grant for development of clean energy technology.

The university will use the $1,280,553 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop a cost-effective, sustainable method for extracting rare earth elements from electronic waste.

Rare earth elements (REEs) are a set of 17 metallic elements.

“REEs are essential components of more than 200 products, especially high-tech consumer products, such as cellular telephones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles, and flat-screen monitors and televisions,” according to the Eos news website.

REEs also are found in defense equipment and technology such as electronic displays, guidance systems, lasers, and radar and sonar systems, says Eos.

The grant awarded to Texas A&M was among $17 million in DOE grants given to 14 projects that seek to accelerate innovation in the critical materials sector. The federal Energy Act of 2020 defines a critical material — such as aluminum, cobalt, copper, lithium, magnesium, nickel, and platinum — as a substance that faces a high risk of supply chain disruption and “serves an essential function” in the energy sector.

“DOE is helping reduce the nation’s dependence on foreign supply chains through innovative solutions that will tap domestic sources of the critical materials needed for next-generation technologies,” says U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. “These investments — part of our industrial strategy — will keep America’s growing manufacturing industry competitive while delivering economic benefits to communities nationwide.”

Under its deal with Occidental, pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners will create a carbon dioxide pipeline system for 1PointFive’s Bluebonnet Sequestration Hub. Photo via 1pointfive.com

Oxy, Enterprise Products Partners to collaborate on carbon dioxide pipeline system for Texas project

coming soon

Occidental Petroleum’s carbon capture, utilization, and sequestration (CCUS) subsidiary has tapped another Houston-based company to develop a carbon dioxide pipeline and transportation network for one of its CCUS hubs.

Under its deal with Occidental, pipeline company Enterprise Products Partners will create a carbon dioxide pipeline system for 1PointFive’s Bluebonnet Sequestration Hub, which will span more than 55,000 acres in Chambers, Liberty, and Jefferson counties. The hub will be able to hold about 1.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide. The new pipeline network will be co-located with existing pipelines.

Enterprise Products Partners also will supply fee-based services for transporting CO2 emissions from industrial facilities near the Houston Ship Channel to the Bluebonnet hub.

“This agreement pairs our expertise managing large volumes of CO2 with Enterprise’s decades of midstream experience to bring confidence to industrial customers seeking a decarbonization solution,” Jeff Alvarez, president of 1PointFive’s sequestration business, says in a news release.

The Bluebonnet Sequestration Hub recently received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to help cover development costs.

“This hub is located between two of the largest industrial corridors in Texas so captured CO2 can be efficiently transported and safely sequestered,” Alvarez said in 2023. “Rather than starting from scratch with individual capture and sequestration projects, companies can plug into this hub for access to shared carbon infrastructure.”

The DOE funding will go toward the creation of a new Texas-based revolving loan fund that operationally matches the existing Texas LoanSTAR revolving loan program. Photo via Getty Images

Texas lands largest portion of energy efficiency-focused federal grant program

DOE deal

Texas is among one of 17 states and territories to receive a portion of $66 million in awards for initiatives that pump federal dollars into their communities to support energy efficient projects.

The funds come from the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) Capitalization Grant Program. The RLF Program awards are intended to be put toward state-based loans and grants that go towards local businesses homeowners, and public spaces for "for energy efficiency audits, upgrades, and retrofits to increase energy efficiency," according to the DOE.

Texas received the largest portion thus far at $22.4 million. The dollars will go toward the creation of a new Texas-based revolving loan fund that operationally matches the existing Texas LoanSTAR revolving loan program.

The program currently finances energy-related, cost-reduced retrofits of public spaces as well as local municipalities. As of last year it had awarded more than 337 loans totaling more than $600 million, according to the Texas Comptroller's website.

In addition to the revolving loan, the state plans to use the DOE funds to provide free energy audit services to the community.

The DOE also awarded funding to create similar revolving loan programs and grants in Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

According to the DOE, every federal dollar invested into a state or local revolving loan fund can bring more than of $20 in private capital toward successful energy financing programs.

“Increased opportunities for low-cost financing will help states and territories expand access to the money-saving clean energy tools that will benefit the residential, commercial and public sectors,” Jennifer M. Granholm, U.S. Secretary of Energy, said in a statement. “We are excited to see states and territories take advantage of targeted and impactful financing options to transform their communities.”

The latest funding is the third award made by the RLF Program, which plans to make another round of awards later this year and a total $242 million once wrapped.

Other awards in this latest round include:

Arizona ($1,690,280)
Colorado ($1,631,220)
Delaware ($746,400)
Georgia ($2,453,810)
Iowa($7,068,920)
Kansas ($6,706,230)
Maine ($863,110)
Massachusetts ($1,894,760)
Minnesota ($1,884,300).
Nevada ($1,043,290)
New Jersey ($2,383,510)
New Mexico ($5,692,530)
Oklahoma ($7,592,300)
Puerto Rico ($1,070,490)
Rhode Island ($762,790)
U.S. Virgin Islands ($576,170)

Click here and here to read more about the previous awards.

Earlier this summer the DOE also awarded four Houston companies have received $50,000 each from the U.S. Department of Energy to further develop their carbon dioxide removal technology. Click here to read more.

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3 strategies to strengthen the Gulf Coast as a global energy hub

The View from HETI

The Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast is the backbone of America’s energy and chemical economy. Texas produces roughly 43% of U.S. crude oil and 28% of natural gas, while Texas and Louisiana together account for about half of the nation’s refining capacity, processing 9.3 million barrels of crude per day across 50 refineries. The region also produces approximately 80% of the nation’s primary petrochemicals and ships more than $117 billion in chemical products annually from Texas alone.

This unmatched concentration of refining, petrochemical manufacturing, pipelines, ports, and technical talent makes the Gulf Coast one of the most critical energy hubs in the world. But maintaining that leadership in a rapidly evolving global market will require intentional collaboration, faster technology commercialization, and strengthened supply chain resilience.

In fall 2025, the Greater Houston Partnership’s Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI) convened national laboratories, Gulf Coast universities, and industry leaders to examine how to reinforce the region’s long-term competitiveness. Participants included Argonne, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Berkeley, the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), and the National Laboratory of the Rockies, alongside Gulf Coast academic institutions and energy and chemical companies. Here are the key findings and takeaways from the workshop.

1. Supply Chain Resilience Requires Structured Industry–Lab Collaboration

Resilience—diversity of supply, operational flexibility, and rapid recovery—was a recurring theme. Recent disruptions exposed vulnerabilities in tightly interconnected energy and manufacturing systems.

National laboratories provide capabilities that complement Gulf Coast industrial scale, particularly at early and mid technology readiness levels (TRLs 1–7), before full commercial deployment. Examples include:

Advanced manufacturing and AI-enabled validation of critical components (Oak Ridge).
Materials scale-up and techno-economic modeling to move from lab discovery to industrial relevance (Argonne).
Pilot-scale testing for severe-service alloys, chemical conversion, and process innovation (NETL).
Integrated energy systems modeling to assess grid resilience and system disruptions (National Laboratory of the Rockies).

Recommendation: Organize targeted Gulf Coast industry missions to national laboratories focused on critical supply chains—power equipment, high-heat industrial processes, novel catalysts, refining, and grid infrastructure—to identify joint development opportunities and reduce time to commercialization.

2. Modeling, AI, and Open-Access Platforms Can Bridge the Technology Gap

A persistent barrier to innovation is the gap between scientific discovery, applied development, and commercial deployment. Universities often operate at TRLs 1–3, national labs at 1–7, and industry at 7–9. Bridging these silos requires shared modeling tools, high-performance computing, and structured feedback loops.

National labs maintain open-access platforms capable of:

Simulating grid expansion, investment, and dispatch decisions.
Modeling cradle-to-gate industrial material flows.
Optimizing complex energy and chemical systems.
De-risking carbon capture, critical mineral recovery, and advanced manufacturing integration.

Recommendation: HETI should convene structured training and feedback sessions on these public modeling platforms—ensuring Gulf Coast industry can apply, improve, and help guide further development of tools critical to regional competitiveness. Federal initiatives such as the Genesis Mission, focused on AI-accelerated scientific discovery, further expand opportunities for Gulf Coast participation.

3. Time to Commercialization Is the Ultimate Competitive Metric

The lithium-ion battery is a cautionary example: while pioneered in U.S. labs, large-scale manufacturing leadership shifted overseas. Without strategic intervention, U.S. firms are projected to capture less than 30% of domestic lithium battery cell value by 2030.

Successful DOE-backed consortium models show that mission-aligned, multi-partner collaboration reduces development timelines and strengthens domestic manufacturing know-how. However, public–private partnership mechanisms such as CRADAs and Strategic Partnership Projects can be time-intensive.

Recommendation: The Gulf Coast should actively engage DOE and national laboratories to streamline public–private partnership pathways, improve intellectual property clarity, and expand industry access to laboratory infrastructure.

The Path Forward: A Gulf Coast Consortium Model
The workshop’s central conclusion was clear: the Gulf Coast should formalize collaboration through a regional industry–academia–laboratory consortium.

Such a model could:

Co-locate national lab researchers within the region.
Share modeling data and analytical capabilities.
Establish open-access pilot facilities that complement lab infrastructure.
Harmonize IP frameworks to accelerate licensing and deployment.

With its dense industrial ecosystem, technical workforce, and decision-making concentration, the Gulf Coast is uniquely positioned to serve as a national demonstration hub for advanced energy and chemical manufacturing.

If industry, universities, and national laboratories align around a shared regional strategy, the Gulf Coast can:

Accelerate commercialization timelines.
Strengthen critical supply chains.
Unleash a world-class technical workforce.
Reinforce U.S. leadership in strategic energy and chemical sectors.

———

This article originally appeared on the Greater Houston Partnership's Houston Energy Transition Initiative blog . A full report on the key learnings and recommendations from the workshop can be found here: https://bit.ly/4uEDEqk.

Houston cleantech company closes $12M seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based Helix Earth Technologies has closed a $12 million Seed 2 funding round to scale manufacturing of its energy-efficient commercial HVAC add-on technology.

Veriten, a Houston-based energy investment firm, led the round. Rua Ventures, Carnrite Ventures, Skywriter LLC and Textbook Ventures also participated.

Helix Earth—which was founded based on NASA technology, spun out of Rice University and has been incubated at Greentown Labs—is developing high-efficiency retrofit dehumidification systems that aim to reduce the energy consumption of commercial HVAC units. The company reports that its technology can lead to "healthier indoor air, lower energy bills, reduced building maintenance, and more comfortable spaces for building owners and occupants."

"Building owners are dealing with rising energy costs, uncontrolled humidity, and aging infrastructure with no viable, cost-effective path forward. We are in the field today solving these problems for commercial customers, and this capital puts us on an aggressive path to scale,” Rawand Rasheed, Helix Earth co-founder and CEO, said in a news release.

“The strength of this round reinforces our team's conviction that we can transform innovation-starved sectors with transformational solutions that deliver order-of-magnitude improvements to owners and operators, for both their bottom line and the environment,” Rasheed added.

Maynard Holt, Veriten’s founder and CEO, said that the investment firm is tripling its investment in Helix Earth.

"The team has built breakthrough technology with real applicability across multiple industries,” Holt said in the release. “Their first product will have an immediate and measurable impact on our energy system, and they are already pursuing adjacent innovations to help heavy industries operate more efficiently and with less waste. This is a well-rounded team with a proven track record of strong execution and disciplined capital management.”

Helix Earth also closed a $5.6 million seed funding round in 2024, led by Veriten.

Last year, the company secured a $1.2 million Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II grant and won in the Smart Cities, Transportation & Sustainability contest at the 2025 SXSW Pitch Showcase. Rasheed was also named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Energy and Green Tech list for 2025.

SLB and NVIDIA expand partnership to scale AI across energy sector

AI partnership

Houston-based energy technology company SLB has expanded its 18-year tech collaboration with chipmaker NVIDIA to include the development of an “AI factory for energy.”

Through their partnership, SLB and NVIDIA will create AI infrastructure and models built around SLB’s existing digital platforms to help energy companies scale AI for data and operations.

In addition to the development of the “AI factory,” SLB will:

Provide modular design services to enhance NVIDIA’s blueprint for building, launching and operating gigawatt-scale AI data centers. In this case, modular design involves manufacturing data center components off-site.
Use NVIDIA’s AI infrastructure to improve the processing of large datasets and AI models across SLB’s digital platforms.

Energy companies generate vast amounts of operational data, which can slow down and silo decision-making, SLB says. By combining NVIDIA’s Omniverse libraries and its Nemotron open models with SLB’s digital and AI platforms, the companies aim to more rapidly transform data into actionable insights.

Omniverse libraries are sets of prebuilt 3D elements, such as objects, surfaces and interactive features, that make it easier to construct detailed virtual spaces without having to design everything manually. They’re commonly used for building immersive environments, digital replicas of real-world systems and simulation scenarios.

Nemotron open models are AI models that are freely available to download and modify. Instead of relying on a hosted service, you can run them on your own infrastructure and tailor them to fit specific needs.

Vladimir Troy, vice president of AI infrastructure at NVIDIA, says the energy sector is at the forefront of AI driving a “new industrial revolution.”

“The winners in AI will be companies with the best data, the deepest domain expertise, and the ability to scale,” Demos Pafitis, SLB’s chief technology officer, added. “By collaborating with NVIDIA to advance modular data center construction and harness our domain expertise and digital platforms, we’re enabling the energy industry to deploy AI at scale and transform operational data into smarter decisions.”

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