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

seeing green

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 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.”

Four decarbonization projects in the region have received federal support. Photo via Getty Images

DOE deploys $6B into decarbonization projects — including 4 on the Gulf Coast

fresh funding

Four projects along the Gulf Coast will receive a share of up to $6 billion in federal funding for decarbonization initiatives.

The $6 billion in funding was announced March 25 by the U.S. Department of Energy. The federal agency and the award recipients still must hammer out details.

“Spurring on the next generation of decarbonization technologies in key industries like steel, paper, concrete, and glass will keep America the most competitive nation on Earth,” U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm says in a news release.

Below are details about the four projects.

Baytown Olefins Plant Carbon Reduction Project

The Baytown Olefins Plant Carbon Reduction Project, led by Spring-based ExxonMobil, will receive up to $331.9 million in federal funding.

Officials say the project will enable the use of hydrogen in place of natural gas for heat-fired equipment using new burner technologies for ethylene production in Baytown. Ethylene is a chemical feedstock used in the production of textiles, synthetic rubbers, and plastic resins.

The equipment modification is aimed at generating 95 percent clean hydrogen fuel and eliminating 2.5 million metric tons of carbon emissions per year.

The Baytown project is expected to employ about 400 construction workers. Furthermore, an estimated 140 current Baytown workers will be trained in the use of hydrogen.

Sustainable Ethylene from CO2 Utilization with Renewable Energy (SECURE)

The federal government will supply as much as $200 million for the SECURE project, which will be located along the Gulf Coast. T.EN Stone & Webster Process Technology in Houston is leading the project in partnership with Illinois-based LanzaTech.

The project seeks to capture carbon dioxide from ethylene production — an important building block for many products — by applying a biotech-based process and green hydrogen to create clean ethanol and ethylene.

SECURE is expected to generate 200 construction jobs and 40 permanent jobs.

Star e-Methanol

The Star e-Methanol project, which will be located along the Texas Gulf Coast, will collect up to $100 million in federal funding. A subsidiary of Denmark-based clean energy developer Ørsted, which recently opened an office in Houston, is leading the project.

The project seeks to capture carbon dioxide from an industrial facility to produce e-methanol, helping reduce the carbon footprint for hard-to-electrify sectors like shipping. Ørsted’s facility will produce up to 300,000 metric tons of e-methanol per year.

Star e-Methanol is projected to create 300 construction jobs and 50 permanent jobs.

Ørsted is collaborating with the University of Houston to develop a curriculum covering zero-carbon fuels and the hydrogen economy.

Syngas Production from Recycled Chemical Byproduct Streams project

The Syngas Production from Recycled Chemical Byproduct Streams project, led by chemical giant BASF, will secure up to $75 million in federal funding.

The project aims to recycle liquid byproducts into synthesis gas. That gas will be used as low-carbon feedstock for BASF’s manufacturing plant in Freeport.

BASF plans to use plasma gasification and renewable power to replace natural gas-fired incineration, decreasing carbon dioxide emissions at the Freeport site by as much as 90 percent.

About 1,600 employees and contractors work at BASF’s Freeport facility.

Joe Powell has been named to a committee for the United States Department of Energy. Photo courtesy of UH

DOE names Houston energy transition leader to advisory committee

here to help

U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm appointed a Houston leader to a prestigious committee.

Joe Powell, founding executive director of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Houston, has been named to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Industrial Technology Innovation Advisory Committee (ITIAC), which consists of 18 members of “diverse stakeholders” according to a news release from the university.

“The collaborative work of the ITIAC aligns seamlessly with the mission of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Houston," Powell says in a news release. “Together, we will endeavor to drive impactful change in the realm of industrial decarbonization and pave the way for a sustainable future.”

Powell brings 36 years of industry experience to the committee, as he is a distinguished member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and former chief scientist at Shell. He was recruited by the University of Houston in 2022 through a matching grant from the Texas Governor’s University Research Initiative (GURI).

The Energy Transition Institute at UH focuses on hydrogen, carbon management, and circular plastics and collaborates closely with the University's Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute and researchers from various disciplines, and other partners in academia and various industries.

Also named to the committee is Chevron Technology Venture's general manager of strategy and technology, Akshay Sahni.

The committee’s mandate includes identifying potential investment opportunities and technical assistance programs. They also assist in helping to bring decarbonization technologies into the marketplace. Committee members will evaluate DOE’s department-wide decarbonization efforts, which includes initiatives that advance the two Energy Earthshots related to industrial decarbonization in the Clean Fuels & Products Shot and the Industrial Heat Shot.

Occidental subsidiary 1PointFive received federal funding to go toward building the South Texas Direct Air Capture Hub. Photo via 1pointfive.com

Houston-based Oxy subsidiary receives $600M in federal funding for carbon capture project

fed funds

A subsidiary of Houston-based energy company Occidental has snagged a roughly $600 million federal grant to establish a hub south of Corpus Christi that’ll remove carbon emissions from the air.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations grant, awarded to Occidental subsidiary 1PointFive, will go toward building the South Texas Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hub. It’ll be located on about 106,000 leased acres within a Kleberg County site at the iconic King Ranch. The hub will comprise 30 individual DAC projects.

In a news release, Occidental says the facility will be able to pull at least 1 million metric tons of carbon from the air each year. The hub eventually might remove and store up to 30 million metric tons of CO2 per year, the company says.

The hub initially will create about 2,500 jobs in construction, operations, and maintenance, says Occidental.

Direct air capture removes CO2 from the atmosphere at any location, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s opposed to carbon capture, which generally happens where CO2 is emitted. Either way, the carbon is stored in deep geological formations and used for a variety of purposes, such as making concrete.

In the case of the South Texas hub, carbon dioxide that’s captured and stored will come from industrial sites along the Texas Gulf Coast.

Occidental President and CEO Vicki Hollub says the grant from the U.S. Department of Energy “validates our readiness, technical maturity, and the ability to use Oxy’s expertise in large projects and carbon management to move the technology forward so it can reach its full potential.”

Oxy’s partners in the South Texas project include:

  • Canada-based clean energy company Carbon Engineering
  • Australia-based professional services provider Worley
  • DOE’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California
  • Livermore Lab Foundation
  • Texas A&M University-Kingsville
  • Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program in Corpus Christi
  • University of Texas at Austin Gulf Coast Carbon Center

The South Texas DAC Hub was one of two DAC projects awarded as much as $1.2 billion in funding August 11 by the Department of Energy (DOE). The other project is Project Cypress, located in Louisiana’s Calcasieu Parish; it received up to $603 million in funding.

In announcing the DAC funding, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm says her agency “is laying the foundation for a direct air capture industry crucial to tackling climate change — transforming local economies and delivering healthier communities along the way.”

The DOE says the Texas and Louisiana projects represent the world’s largest-ever investment in engineered carbon removal. They’re two of the four regional projects that the DOE plans to finance as part of its DAC initiative, supported by $3.5 billion in federal funding aimed at capturing and storing pollution from carbon dioxide.

Just 18 DAC facilities are currently operating across the U.S., Canada, and Europe, according to a 2022 report from the International Energy Agency.

“No matter how fast we decarbonize the nation’s economy, we must tackle the legacy pollution already in our atmosphere to avoid the worst effects of climate change,” Granholm said in 2022.

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Greentown Labs combines forces with MassChallenge to support more climate startups

strategic partnership

Climatetech incubator Greentown Labs has formed a strategic partnership with global zero-equity accelerator MassChallenge.

The two organizations have headquarters in the Boston area, while Greentown Labs is also co-located in Houston. MassChallenge has a hub in Dallas, as well as others in Israel, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

The new partnership aims to strengthen the ecosystem for early-stage climatetech startups by providing more mentorship, support and a broader commercialization network for members, according to a news release.

Greentown Labs will share its expertise with the 23 startups in MassChallenge's first climate-specific accelerator, known as the MassChallenge Early Stage Climate program. Additionally, Greentown Labs members will benefit from MassChallenge's network of expert mentors, judges, entrepreneurs, partners, investors, philanthropists and others.

“There are so many synergies and shared values between MassChallenge and Greentown that launching a collaboration like this feels like a natural next step for our organizations as we strive to support as many early-stage climate founders as possible,” Georgina Campbell Flatter, Greentown Labs CEO, said in the news release. “We want to reduce the friction and barriers to market for these climate entrepreneurs and ultimately increase their opportunity for success—ecosystem collaboration is an essential part of solving these challenges together.”

Combined, Greentown and MassChallenge report that they have supported more than 4,500 founders and more than 1,000 climate startups. MassChallenge has awarded more than $18 million in equity-free grants to startups, which have gone on to raise over $15 billion, since it was founded in 2009. Greentown Labs has helped more than 575 startups raise more than $8.2 billion in funding since it launched in 2011.

Greentown recently added five startups to its Houston community and 14 other climatetech ventures to its Boston incubator. It also announced its third ACCEL cohort, which works to advance BIPOC-led startups in the climatetech space, earlier this year. Read more here.

$135M battery facility breaks ground in Houston and more energy news to know

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Editor's note: We're looking back at the hottest EnergyCapitalHTX stories from the second half of May 2025. Our most-read stories from May 16-30 include large-scale battery storage developments, collaborations with major brands, and a scientific breakthrough.

$135 million Houston battery storage facility breaks ground

SMT Energy, CenterPoint and Irby Construction have broken ground on a 160-megawatt battery energy storage system in ERCOT's Houston zone. Photo via Getty Images

SMT Energy and CenterPoint Energy have partnered with utility infrastructure solutions provider Irby Construction Company to break ground on a 160 megawatt battery energy storage system (BESS) located in the Houston zone of the ERCOT market.

“We are proud to be underway and deliver this grid-strengthening project to Houston,” Kevin Midei, SVP of engineering, procurement and construction, at SMT Energy, said. Continue reading.

Houston researchers make breakthrough on electricity-generating bacteria

A team of Rice researchers, including Caroline Ajo-Franklin and Biki Bapi Kundu, has uncovered how certain bacteria breathe by generating electricity. Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University.

New research from Rice University that merges biology with electrochemistry has uncovered new findings on how some bacteria generate electricity.

Led by Caroline Ajo-Franklin, a Rice professor of biosciences and the director of the Rice Synthetic Biology Institute, the team published its findings in the journal Cell in April. The report showed how some bacteria use compounds called naphthoquinones, rather than oxygen, to transfer electrons to external surfaces in a process known as extracellular respiration. In other words, the bacteria are exhale electricity as they breathe. Continue reading.

Ultra-fast EV charging bays coming to Waffle House locations in Texas and beyond

bp pulse plans to install a network of DC fast chargers at Waffle House locations in Texas, Georgia and Florida. Photo via Getty Images.

Scattered, smothered and ... charged? Starting next year, EV drivers can connect to ultra-fast charging stations at select Waffle House locations throughout Texas, courtesy of bp pulse.

The EV arm of British energy giant bp announced a strategic partnership with the all-day breakfast chain. The company aims to deploy a network of 400kW DC fast chargers and a mix of CCS and NACS connectors at Waffle House locations in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and other restaurants in the South.Continue reading.

Engie partners on major Texas, California battery storage portfolio

Engie and CBRE are partnering up. Photo via Getty Images

Houston’s Engie North America has partnered with New York-based CBRE Investment Management on a 2.4-gigawatt portfolio of battery storage assets in Texas and California.

The portfolio consists of 31 projects operating in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and California Independent System Operator (CAISO) territories. According to a company statement, the transaction represents one of Engie’s largest operating portfolio partnerships in the U.S. Continue reading.

Houston renewables developer and Google agree to second solar collaboration

Google will soon be able to pull from energyRe’s portfolio of more than 600 megawatts of new solar and solar storage projects in South Carolina. Photo via Pixabay

EnergyRe, a developer of large-scale renewable energy projects with headquarters in Houston and New York, has signed a renewable energy agreement that will allow Google to invest in and purchase renewable energy credits (RECs) from its projects under development in South Carolina.

Google will be able to pull from energyRe’s portfolio of more than 600 megawatts of new solar and solar storage projects in the state. Continue reading.

Houston cleantech accelerator names 12 startups to 2025 cohort

early-stage accelerator

The Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator has named 12 early-stage startups to its latest cohort.

The hybrid program, which operates in a hybrid capacity based out of the Ion, runs for 10 weeks and provides energy transition startups with training focused on fundraising, pilots, partnerships and sale. It begins July 8 and will be led by executive director Kerri Smith and program director Matthew Peña with support from executives-in-residence Lynn Frostman, John Jeffers, David Horsup and Dev Motiram.

The accelerator will culminate with a demo day on Sept. 18 at the Rice Alliance Energy Tech Venture Forum during the Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week.

Members of this year's cohort come from the Houston area as well as across the U.S. and Canada.

Class 5 for the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator includes:

  • Aqua-Cell Energy, which builds industrial-scale overnight batteries to provide affordable solar power
  • Arculus, a company that provides multilayer internal coating for pipelines that lowers friction, extends pipeline life and enables carbon dioxide transport and hydrogen blending
  • AtmoSpark, a Houston-based sustainable cooling and freshwater company that provides an electric field-driven air separation system that reduces dehumidification energy costs for data centers and industrial facilities
  • AtoMe, which delivers durable metallic composites to energy and aerospace companies using an eco-friendly dry blade method that eliminates harmful chemicals
  • ConceptLoop, a company that converts plastic waste into eco-friendly, low-carbon aggregate
  • Fathom Storage, which provides a more solidly embedded and steel-efficient anchoring solution for offshore service providers, wind energy developers and research institutes
  • GeoKiln, a Houston-based company that addresses issues of subsurface hydrogen extraction by applying proven oil and gas techniques to accelerate natural hydrogen reactions, enabling hydrogen production
  • Innowind Energy Solutions, a company that provides nonintrusive, active flow control devices to boost energy production and extend turbine lifespan
  • Lukera Energy, which transforms waste methane into high-value methanol using a breakthrough nanobubble technology
  • Metal Light Inc., which has developed a scalable, cost-effective Metal-Air generator to replace diesel generators
  • Moonshot Hydrogen, a company that converts food and agricultural waste into clean hydrogen and bioethanol
  • Resollant, a Woodlands-based company that delivers compact, zero-emission hydrogen and carbon reactors to refineries, petrochemical plants, steel and cement manufacturers and fuel producers

The Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator has supported 55 ventures since it was founded in 2021, collectively raising over $250 million in funding, according to the university. See last year's cohort here.

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