Sustainable sculpture to power Houston multicultural arts building

arts meets energy transition

The City of Houston is aiming to have Arco del Tiempo installed in 2024. Photo courtesy of The City of Houston

The City of Houston has unveiled the first look at the latest permanent public artwork that will be installed in the Second Ward in 2024. The sculpture is the first-ever environmentally sustainable art piece that will generate electricity for the nearby City-owned Latino multicultural performing arts theater.

Arco del Tiempo (Arch of Time) is a 100-foot tall arch designed by Berlin-based artist and architect Riccardo Mariano. Several years have been put into the making of this project, dating as far back as 2019. Mariano had entered the idea into a Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI) design competition in the Houston sister-city of Abu Dhabi. From there, it was chosen to be developed full-scale and installed at Guadalupe Plaza Park.

According to a press release, the sculpture can measure time and cast beams of sunlight onto the ground, creating a connection between "the celestial and the terrestrial" through the geometry of the design.

The light beams are different based on the four seasons and the time of day, constantly shifting and responding to the latitude and longitude of the city from space. Mariano said that his sculpture is a "practical example" of how physical art can interact with the abstract, such as the Earth's movement around the sun.

"The apparent movement of the sun in the sky activates the space with light and colors and engages viewers who participate in the creation of the work by their presence," said Mariano. "Arco del Tiempo merges renewable energy generation with public space and into the everyday life of the Second Ward. Inspired by science and powered by renewable energy, the artwork is a bridge between art and technology and encourages educational purposes while improving public space. At night the space within the arch will be used as a stage for outdoor public events.”

"At night the space within the arch will be used as a stage for outdoor public events,” Riccardo Mariano said.Photo courtesy of The City of Houston

Arco del Tiempo will do more than just be an aesthetically pleasing sight for the community. Its meaningful, functional purpose will be to generate about 400,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, and power the Talento Bilingüe de Houston. LAGI founding co-director Elizabeth Monoian said in the release the sculpture will generate over 12 million kilowatt-hours of power throughout its lifetime, which equals the removal of 8,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

"Through the clean energy it produces, Arco del Tiempo will pay back its embodied carbon footprint," Monoian said. "In other words, all the energy that went into its making—from the smelting of the steel to the drilling that puts the final cladding into place—will be offset through the energy it generates. Beyond its break-even point, which we will track and celebrate with the community, the artwork will be a net-positive contributor to a healthy climate and the planet will be better off for its existence.”

In a statement, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner praised the unique art piece as more than just a sculpture, but as a "monument to a new era of energy."

"The City of Houston has always stood at the vanguard of energy innovation and the Arco del Tiempo artwork stands in that tradition, highlighting Houston’s role as an art city and as global leader in the energy transition," Mayor Turner said. "We are inspired by the vision and creative thinking. Marrying clean energy, the built environment, and truly World Class art is Houston.”

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston company raises $100M Series D to scale industrial decarbonization tech

fresh funding

Houston-based Utility Global has raised $100 million in an ongoing Series D round to globally deploy its decarbonization technology at an industrial scale.

The round was led by Ara Partners and APG Asset, according to a news release. Utility plans to use the funding to expand manufacturing, grow its teams and support its commercial developments and partnerships.

“This financing marks a critical step in Utility’s transition from a proven technology to full-scale global commercial execution,” Parker Meeks, CEO and president of Utility Global, said in the release. “Industrial customers are no longer looking for pilots or promises; they need deployable solutions that work within existing assets and deliver true economic industrial decarbonization today that is operationally reliable and highly scalable. Utility’s technology produces both economic clean hydrogen and capture-ready CO2 streams, and this capital enables us to scale and deploy that impact globally with speed, discipline, and rigor.”

Utility Global's H2Gen technology produces low-cost, clean hydrogen from water and industrial off-gases without requiring electricity. It's designed to integrate into existing industrial infrastructure in hard-to-abate assets in the steel, refining, petrochemical, chemical, low-carbon fuels, and upstream oil and gas sectors.

“Utility is tackling one of the most difficult challenges in the energy transition: decarbonizing hard‑to‑abate industrial sectors,” Cory Steffek, partner at Ara Partners and Utility Global board chair, said in the release. “What sets Utility apart is its ability to compete head‑to‑head with conventional fossil‑based solutions on cost and reliability, even as it materially reduces emissions. With this new funding, Utility is well-positioned for its next chapter of commercial growth while maintaining the technical excellence and capital discipline that have defined its development to date.”

Utility Global reached several major milestones in 2025. After closing a $53 million Series C, the company agreed to develop at least one decarbonization facility at an ArcelorMittal steel plant in Brazil. It also signed a strategic partnership with California-based Kyocera International Inc. to scale global manufacturing of its H2Gen electrochemical cells.

The company also partnered with Maas Energy Works, another California company, to develop a commercial project integrating Maas’ dairy biogas systems with H2Gen to produce economical, clean hydrogen.

"These projects were never intended to stand alone. They anchor a deep and growing pipeline of commercial projects now in development globally across steel, refining, chemicals, biogas and other hard-to-abate sectors worldwide, Meeks shared in a 2025 year-in-review note. He added that 2026 would be a year of "focused acceleration to scale."

Houston energy pioneer elected to National Academy of Sciences leadership

top honor

Naomi Halas, a Rice University professor and co-founder of Syzygy Plasmonics, was elected to the Council of the National Academy of Sciences this month.

The council sets priorities for the nonprofit organization, which advises the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Halas will serve a three-year term on the council, beginning July 1.

“The council’s work is focused on the academy’s national leadership and governance,” Halas said in a news release. “It plays an important role in helping set initiatives and priorities for the scientific community, and in supporting the conditions that allow science to move forward in meaningful ways.”

Halas is best known for her pioneering work in nanophotonics and plasmonics. She helped develop nanoshells, or metal-coated nanoparticles that capture light energy, which have led to innovations in renewable energy, cancer therapy and water purification.

Halas co-founded Syzygy Plasmonics with frequent collaborator and fellow Rice professor Peter Nordlander. The company is developing low-cost, light-driven, all-electric chemical reactors for the sustainable production of hydrogen fuel. It was named to Fast Company's energy innovation list last year.

Syzygy Plasmonics is developing its first commercial-scale biogas-to-sustainable aviation fuel project in Uruguay, known as NovaSAF-1. It secured a six-year offtake agreement for the entire production from the project with Singapore-based commodity company Trafigura this month.

Halas was first elected to become a member of the NAS in 2013, and was shortly after named to the National Academy of Engineering in 2014—making her one of the few scientists to hold both distinctions. She received the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry last year. Many scientists who have received the award have gone on to win Nobel prizes.

She is also the co-founder of Nanospectra Biosciences and a member of the National Academy of Inventors, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters. She holds more than 25 patents, according to Rice.

Houston startup launches groundbreaking mineral hydrogen pilot

pilot project

Houston climatech company Vema Hydrogen recently completed drilling its first two pilot wells in Quebec for its Engineered Mineral Hydrogen (EMH) pilot. The company says the project is the first EMH pilot of its kind.

Vema’s EMH technology produces low-cost, high-purity hydrogen from subsurface rock formations. It has the capacity to support e-fuel and clean mobility industries and the shipping and air transport markets. The pilot project is the first field deployment of the company’s technology.

“This pilot will provide the critical data needed to validate Engineered Mineral Hydrogen at commercial scale and demonstrate that Quebec can lead the world in this emerging clean energy category,” Pierre Levin, CEO of Vema Hydrogen, said in a news release.

Levin added that the sample collected thus far in the pilot is “exactly what we expected, and is very promising for hydrogen yields.”

Through the pilot, Vema will collect core samples and begin subsurface analysis to evaluate fluid movement and monitor hydrogen production from the wells. The data collected from the pilot will shape Vema's plans for commercialization and provide documentation for proof of concept in the field, according to the news release.

“Vema Hydrogen perfectly embodies the spirit of the grey to green movement: transforming mining liabilities into drivers of innovation and ecological transition,” Ludovic Beauregard, circular economy commissioner at the Thetford Region Economic Development Corporation, added in the release.

“This project demonstrates that it is possible to reconcile the revitalization of mining regions, clean energy and sustainable economic development for these areas.”

In addition to its pilot in Canada, Vema also recently signed a 10-year hydrogen purchase and sale agreement with San Francisco-based Verne Power to supply clean hydrogen for data centers across California. The company was selected as a Qualified Supplier by The First Public Hydrogen Authority, which will allow it to supply clean hydrogen at scale to California’s municipalities, transit agencies and businesses through the FPH2 network.

Vema aims to produce Engineered Mineral Hydrogen for less than $1 per kilogram. The company, founded in 2024, is working toward a gigawatt-scale hydrogen supply in North America.

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