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Proposed Texas high-speed Houston-Dallas rail lands $500K in federal funds

fresh funds

Texas high-speed bullet train has some fresh financial fuel. Photo of the N700 courtesy of © JR Central

Amtrak and its partners will receive more than $2.1 billion in a federal program to improve existing routes and expand Amtrak service across the U.S.

That includes $500,000 from the Federal Railroad Administration awarded to the long-in-the-works high-speed rail project between Houston and Dallas, as well as another $500,000 awarded to the I-20 Corridor Long-Distance Passenger Rail Project.

The funding is via the newly-passed Infrastructure Investment & Jobs Act and includes multiple grants that will go to Amtrak and partners. This includes:

  • $108.5 million to Amtrak for station and service upgrades;
  • $2 billion to Amtrak partners in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maine for infrastructure upgrades
  • $34.5 million to 39 states and localities for planning and development of 69 new and improved intercity passenger rail corridors

These grants were awarded through the Federal Railroad Administration’s Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail Program for projects located across the National Network, as well as the Corridor Identification and Development Program (Corridor ID).

FRA Administrator Amit Bose says in a statement that these will be "transformative rail projects" that will provide climate-friendly alternatives to congested roads and airports.

“Today’s investments in passenger rail nationwide, made possible by the President’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, are another step forward as we expand and modernize our country’s rail network, providing more Americans the world-class passenger rail they need and deserve," Bose says.

Amtrak was awarded funding on a variety of projects, including four Corridor programs, designed to create a pipeline of intercity passenger rail projects.

Those include:

  • Texas High-Speed Rail Corridor. This proposed corridor would connect Houston and Dallas, Texas, with a new, dedicated and grade separated high-speed passenger rail service. This would provide new service on a new alignment, with station stops in Dallas, Brazos Valley and Houston.
  • Long Island Northeast Regional Extension. This proposed corridor would extend three existing daily Northeast Regional round trips between Washington, DC and New York City east to Ronkonkoma, NY, with stops at Jamaica (Queens, NY) and Hicksville, NY. This would entail track, station and infrastructure upgrades to accommodate these trains and better integrate Amtrak service with Long Island Rail Road commuter service.
  • Daily Cardinal Service. This proposed corridor would increase Cardinal service to operate daily, versus three days per week currently. This route operates between New York City and Chicago via Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana.
  • Daily Sunset Limited Service. This proposed corridor would increase Sunset Limited service to operate daily, versus three days per week currently. This route operates between Los Angeles and New Orleans via Houston, San Antonio and El Paso, Texas; Tucson, Ariz.; and other communities.

The release does not say exactly how the $500,000 will be used. According to TxDOT, the current estimate for construction of track between Houston and Dallas is approximately $16 billion.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

The high-speed train project, which is expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100,000 tons per year, is back on track. Photo courtesy of JR Central

Houston-Dallas bullet train gets back on the rails, races greener Texas travel

speeding back

In the latest chapter in the saga of the high-speed bullet train between Houston and Dallas, Amtrak is now involved.

According to a press release, Texas Central Partners and Amtrak are exploring a partnership to work together on the proposed Dallas-Houston high-speed rail project that's been under consideration for more than a decade.

Amtrak has cooperated with Texas Central on various initiatives since 2016 and the two entities are now evaluating a potential partnership to determine the line's viability.

“If we are going to add more high-speed rail to this country, the Dallas to Houston Corridor is a compelling proposition and offers great potential,” says Amtrak senior VP of High-Speed Rail Development Programs Andy Byford. “We believe many of the country's biggest and fastest-growing metropolitan areas, like Houston and Dallas, deserve more high quality high-speed, intercity rail service, and we are proud to bring our experience to evaluate this potential project and explore opportunities with Texas Central so the state can meet its full transportation needs.”

The route being proposed would span approximately 240 miles, going at 250 mph, resulting in a trip that would take less than 90 minutes between the two cities.

Texas Central has been working towards getting a train rolling since 2013, including lining up a potential builder in 2021. But the project has had pushback from Texas politicians and landowners along the route; a lawsuit against the project was filed by six rural counties in 2021, and the Texas Legislature passed a law prohibiting the state from spending any funds on the project.

Facing a seeming dead end, Texas Central CEO Carlos Aguilar and its board members resigned in June 2022; Michael Bui, a consultant, has been serving as CEO since then.

Texas Central and Amtrak have submitted applications to several federal programs in connection with further study and design work, including the Consolidated Rail Infrastructure Safety and Improvements (CRISI) grant program, the Corridor Identification and Development program, and the Federal-State Partnership for Intercity Passenger Rail (FSP-National) grant program.

Amtrak previously entered into an agreement with Texas Central to provide through-ticketing using the Amtrak reservation system and other support services for the planned high-speed rail line.

"This high-speed train, using advanced, proven Shinkansen technology, has the opportunity to revolutionize rail travel in the southern U.S., and we believe Amtrak could be the perfect partner to help us achieve that,” says Bui in a statement.

Despite its detractors, the project is forecast to provide social, environmental, employment and economic benefits including reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 100,000 tons per year, saving 65 million gallons of fuel and removing 12,500 cars per day from I-45.

The release from Amtrak has statements from both Dallas Mayor Eric L. Johnson and Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, who calls the collaboration between Texas Central and Amtrak "an important milestone for the City of Houston and this project."

Byford joined Amtrak in April 2023 to begin developing a team focused on high-speed opportunities throughout the U.S. In his newly created role, he will develop and lead the execution of Amtrak’s long-term strategy for high-speed rail throughout the country, including the extension of the Crescent from Mississippi through Louisiana and Texas; Kansas DOT’s Heartland Flyer Extension Corridor Identification and Development (Corridor ID) connecting Wichita to Oklahoma and Texas, and TxDOT’s applications for the Texas Triangle (Houston — Dallas – Fort Worth – San Antonio) routes.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston researchers secure funding for superconductivity project

fresh funding

Researchers at the Department of Physics at the University of Houston and Texas Center for Superconductivity have received a second-year funding from global leader in business of invention Intellectual Ventures to continue their work on exploring superconductivity,

The project, which is led by Paul C. W. Chu, T.L.L. Temple Chair of Science, professor of physics and founding director of the TcSUH and assistant professor of physics and a new TcSUH principal investigator Liangzi Deng, has been awarded $767,000 to date.

“Working with IV gives us the freedom known for scientific pursuit and at the same time provides intellectual guidance and assistance in accord with the mission goal,” Chu says in a news release.

The researchers are working on making superconductivity easier to achieve. At room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure is where the researchers are looking to simplify superconductivity. One finding from Chu and Deng’s team is called pressure-quench protocol, or PQP.The PQP will help maintain key properties (like superconductivity) in certain materials after the high pressure needed to create them is removed.

“Intellectual Ventures funded this research because Paul Chu is one of the acknowledged thought leaders in the area of superconductivity with a multi-decade track record of scientific innovation and creativity,” Brian Holloway, vice president of IV’s Deep Science Fund and Enterprise Science Fund, adds. “The work led by Chu and Deng on pressure quenching could result in game-changing progress in the field. We are very excited about the preliminary results from the first year and we look forward to continuing this collaboration.”

The project showed early success the first year, as the research used a special system to synthesize materials under high temperatures and pressure. The second-year projects will include the investigation of pressure-induced/enhanced superconductivity in cuprates and hydrides.

“If successful, UH will once again break the record for the highest superconducting Tc at atmospheric pressure,” Deng says in the release. “Additionally, we will collaborate closely with theorists to uncover the mechanism of PQP. Our research has far-reaching implications, with the potential to extend beyond superconductors to other material systems.”

Tesla posts surprise $2.17B third-quarter profit, up from a year ago

by the numbers

Tesla’s third-quarter net income rose 17.3 percent compared with a year ago on stronger electric vehicle sales, and an optimistic CEO Elon Musk predicted 20 percent to 30 percent sales growth next year.

The strong performance changed the trajectory of the year for the Austin, Texas-based company, which had seen sales and profits decline in the first two quarters.

In its letter to investors, Tesla predicted slight growth in vehicle deliveries this year, better than the 1.8 million delivered worldwide in 2023.

Tesla said Wednesday that it made $2.17 billion from July through September, more than the $1.85 billion profit it posted in the same period of 2023.

The earnings came despite price cuts and low-interest financing that helped boost sales of the company’s aging vehicle lineup during the quarter. It was Tesla’s first year-over-year quarterly profit increase of 2024, a year plagued by falling sales and prices.

Revenue in the quarter rose 7.8 percent to $25.18 billion, falling short of Wall Street analysts who estimated it at $25.47 billion, according to FactSet. Tesla made an adjusted 72 cents per share, soundly beating analyst expectations of 59 cents.

Shares in Tesla Inc. soared nearly 12 percent in trading after Wednesday’s closing bell.

On a conference call with analysts, Musk said the profit increase came despite a challenging environment for auto sales with still-high loan interest rates. “I think if you look at EV companies worldwide, to the best of my knowledge, no EV company is even profitable,” he said.

Musk qualified his prediction that Tesla would post 2025 vehicle sales growth of 20 percent to 30 percent by saying it could be changed by “negative external events.”

Earlier this month Tesla said it sold 462,890 vehicles from July through September, up 6.4 percent from a year ago. The sales numbers were better than analysts had expected.

The letter said that Tesla is on track to start production of new vehicles, including more affordable models, in the first half of next year, something investors had been looking for. The new vehicles will use parts from its current models and will be made on the same assembly lines as Tesla’s current model lineup, the letter said.

The new vehicles were not identified and the price was nebulous. Musk has said in the past the company is working on a car that will cost about $25,000, but said Wednesday that a new affordable vehicle would cost under $30,000 including government tax incentives.

Earlier this month, the company showed off a purpose-built two-seat robotaxi called “Cybercab” at a glitzy event at a Hollywood movie studio. Musk said it would be in production before 2027 and cost around $25,000.

By using parts from existing models and the current manufacturing system, Tesla won’t reach cost reductions that it previously expected using a new manufacturing setup.

Tesla said it reduced the cost of goods per vehicle to its lowest level yet, about $35,100.

The company’s widely watched gross profit margin, the percentage of revenue it gets to keep after expenses, rose to 19.8 percent, the highest in a year, but still smaller than the peak of 29.1 percent in the first quarter of 2022.

During the quarter, Tesla’s revenue from regulatory credits purchased by other automakers who can’t meet government emissions targets hit $739 million, the second highest quarter in company history.

Musk said Tesla's “Full Self-Driving” system is improving and would drive more safely than humans in the second quarter of next year. Despite the name, Teslas using “Full Self-Driving” cannot drive themselves, and human drivers must be ready to intervene at all times.

The company, he said, is offering an autonomous ride-hailing service to employees in the San Francisco Bay Area, but it currently has human safety drivers. It expects to start a robotaxi service for the public in California and Texas next year, he said.

Musk also conceded that it may not be possible to reach autonomous driving safety levels with older editions of “Full Self-Driving” hardware. If it can't do that, Tesla will upgrade computers in the older cars for free, he said.

The self-driving claims come just five days after U.S. safety regulators opened an investigation into the system's cameras to see in low-visibility conditions such as sun glare, fog and airborne dust. The probe raised doubts about whether the system will be ready to drive on its own next year.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said in documents posted Friday that it opened the probe of 2.4 million Teslas after the company reported four crashes in low visibility conditions. In one, a woman who stopped to help after a crash on an Arizona freeway was struck and killed by a Tesla.

Investigators will look into the ability of “Full Self-Driving” to “detect and respond appropriately to reduced roadway visibility conditions."

Edward Jones analyst Jeff Windau said the earnings report and conference call showed that Tesla is making money on software, a business with high profit margins.

Still, he has a “hold” rating on the stock as the company moves toward robotics and autonomous vehicles. “They’ve got a lot of challenging goals out there,” he said.

3 things to know: Houston co. makes acquisition, EV expert's podcast to stream, and events not to miss

taking notes

Editor's note: Dive headfirst into the new week with three quick things to catch up on in Houston's energy transition.

Events not to miss

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

Big deal: Houston geology software provider makes strategic acquisition to expand platform

Houston-based ROGII has acquired a new software to integrate into its platform. Photo via ROGII.com

An advanced geosteering, geoscience, and drilling software solutions company based in Houston has announced the acquisition of of a software platform.

ROGII plans to acquire TerraSLS's TLog Mudlog Editor software, which is used to generate vertical, and horizontal striplogs for use by geologists. The acquisition “will significantly enhance ROGII's product offerings by providing operators and clients with unprecedented real-time connectivity to mudlogging data,” according to ROGII. Mudlogging is a process that involves examining the cuttings of rock brought to the surface by the drilling.

“Our acquisition of TLog marks another step forward in our mission to deliver the most advanced, real-time data solutions to the oil and gas industry,” CEO of ROGII Igor B. Uvarov says in a news release. “The integration of TLog’s capabilities into our Solo Cloud platform will revolutionize the way operators and mudlogging service companies interact, making mudlogging a truly real-time process and driving greater efficiency and collaboration.” Read more.

Listen in: Houston innovator drives EV adoption with unique approach to car leasing, smart tech

Chris George, United States co-lead at Octopus Electric Vehicles, joins the Houston Innovators Podcast. Photo courtesy of Octopus

Switching from a gas-powered car to an electric one can be a big change, but a Houston-based company has made things a lot easier for its customers.

Octopus Electric Vehicles US, a spinout of United Kingdom-based retail energy provider Octopus Energy, matches its users with their perfect EV lease and sets them up with smart electricity technology for at-home charging.

"We do a couple of really unique things that are not only first of its kind but really innovative," Octopus EV's US Co-Lead Chris George says on the Houston Innovators Podcast, pointing out specifically Octopus Energy's Intelligent Octopus, a smart feature for customers that automates energy usage to lower cost.

"We launched an Intelligent Octopus for EVs service. Instead of operating in a very narrow window — overnight — it operates dynamically," he continues. Read more.

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