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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ERCOT braces for record-breaking power demand this summer

hot temps, high demand

The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages about 90 percent of the state’s power, is waving a warning flag: The ERCOT grid may set a new record for peak demand this summer.

Based on expectations for a hotter summer this year than last year, ERCOT predicts power demand will hit a peak of more than 92.2 gigawatts this summer — enough power for roughly 18.4 million homes.

“Given the potential for extreme heat combined with significant load growth, ERCOT may surpass its current all-time summer peak,” the organization says in its 2026 summertime forecast.

Further taxing the ERCOT grid are power-hungry data centers and cryptocurrency-mining facilities.

Last year’s peak summer demand for ERCOT reached 83.7 megawatts on Aug. 18, and all-time peak demand of 85.5 gigawatts was recorded on Aug. 10, 2023.

Fortunately, ERCOT believes the grid is in good shape to withstand this summer’s heat: It found a 0.09 percent chance of a grid emergency in June and a 0.21 percent chance in July.

More generation of electricity from solar and wind is helping ERCOT meet stepped-up demand prompted by population growth, and the significant power needs of data centers and cryptocurrency-mining facilities.

About 27 million Texas customers depend on power from ERCOT’s grid.

Texas awards $73M for Houston-area grid resilience project

grid funding

Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott announced millions in funding for energy resilience projects around this state this week, with one major project set to impact the greater Houston area.

As part of the Texas Energy Fund's Outside of ERCOT Grant Program, the state announced a roughly $73 million agreement with the Sam Houston Electric Cooperative to replace and upgrade more than 9,000 electric poles and improve other equipment in Montgomery, Liberty and Hardin counties. The agreement is the first for the fund's Outside of ERCOT Grant Program, which supports state projects outside of the state's largest grid.

The multibillion-dollar Texas Energy Fund aims to "finance the construction, maintenance, and modernization of electric facilities across Texas." It was approved by voters in 2023. Other programs within the fund include the:

In-ERCOT Generation Loan Program
Completion Bonus Grant Program
Texas Backup Power Package Program

“The Texas Energy Fund delivers real results for Texans and strengthens the electric systems that families, businesses, and communities depend on,” Abbott said in a news release. “This grant to Sam Houston Electric Cooperative will replace thousands of vulnerable utility poles to better withstand severe weather and ensure a more reliable and resilient grid in East Texas.”

The Houston-area project, nicknamed Steel Anchor, is expected to be completed by June 2031. According to the release from the governor's office, the Sam Houston Electric Cooperative’s territory is one of the most hurricane-prone service areas in the state. The cooperative serves more than 38,000 Texas consumers

“Over the past decade, Sam Houston EC has strategically replaced poles to improve the strength of its electricity distribution system. This grant will boost the Cooperative’s ongoing grid-hardening and resiliency program,” Doug Turk, CEO of the Sam Houston Electric Cooperative, added in the release.

Following the announcement of the Sam Houston funding, Abbott's office also awarded another $200 million from the Outside of ERCOT Grant Program to upgrade approximately 700 miles of power equipment in Northeast Texas. The equipment is operated by Southwestern Electric Power Company, which serves more than 192,000 Texas consumers. The project will include improvements to 200 circuits, replacing aging copper wire with aluminum alloy conductors and replacing existing utility poles.

Additionally, the state announced its seventh Texas Energy Fund loan agreement for a 570 megawatt natural gas power plant in Sherman, Texas. The 20-year loan of up to $411 million is between the Public Utility Commission of Texas and Rayburn Electric Cooperative and is part of the fund's In-ERCOT Generation Loan Program. Rayburn will build the facility near its existing Rayburn Energy Station 1 in the Texoma region. It will connect to the ERCOT North Load Zone.

“When Texas voters overwhelmingly approved the Texas Energy Fund, they gave us a mandate to secure new, reliable power generation for Texas,” PUCT Chairman Thomas Gleeson added in a release. “The TxEF is delivering on that promise, and Rayburn Electric Cooperative’s new 570 MW power plant is proof. We are ensuring Texas families and businesses have power they can depend on for years to come.”

Solar manufacturer announces massive new facility in Houston area

coming soon

SEG Solar has announced plans to open a new 1.15 million-square-foot solar module facility in Tomball—its third in the Houston area.

The news comes just weeks after the Houston-based solar manufacturer announced its second facility, which will be located in Cypress. It’s expected to open in August.

The latest 4.6-gigawatt facility in Tomball will include an assembly factory and a warehouse. Construction is slated to wrap in March 2027, with commercial panel production planned to begin in May 2027. Once completed, the facility will bring SEG’s annual U.S. module manufacturing capacity to 10.6 gigawatts, according to a news release from the company, one of the largest totals in the country.

The facility will produce heterojunction technology (HJT) modules, which the company says will add to the number of n-type solar panels made in the U.S. HJT modules are known to be more durable and are well suited for hotter climates.

“Designed to support next-generation HJT technology and FEOC-compliant production, the facility ensures reliable, high-efficiency solar solutions,” Raymond Bailey, sales manager at SEG Solar, said in a LinkedIn post. “ Alongside upstream integration in Indonesia and potential U.S. cell manufacturing, we are strengthening supply chain resilience amid evolving trade policies.”

SEG opened its $60 million, 250,000-square-foot facility in Houston in 2024 to house its production workshops, raw material warehouses, administrative offices, finished goods warehouses, and supporting infrastructure. The continued expansion is part of SEG’s long-term goal of becoming one of the largest 100 percent U.S.-owned module manufacturers.

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