The new initiative will take stranded natural gas and turn it into hydrogen. Photo via Getty Images

A new partnership between an energy and sustainability investor and a Houston-based company that focuses on cleaner solutions in the oil and gas industry will look into turning stranded natural gas into blue hydrogen.

New York-based Double Zero Holdings and SJ Environmental announced their new partnership this week in an effort to move forward the energy transition. According to the companies, stranded natural gas — mostly methane — usually remains unused where it is not economically viable to transport. By turning these gasses into into blue hydrogen, "the partnership mitigates methane and CO2 emissions while producing hydrogen—a clean fuel that could revolutionize multiple industries," reads the news release.

The initiative will use existing technologies, which can be reduced to the size of a standard shipping container, per the release.

"We're thrilled to partner with SJ Environmental to tackle one of the most pressing environmental issues today," Raja Ramachandran, managing partner of Double Zero Holdings, says in the release. "This collaboration allows us to turn stranded natural gas—a significant environmental liability—into a valuable resource, supporting the global shift toward cleaner energy."

The plan is to lower the amount of natural gas left wasted and provide a low-carbon alternative across transportation, manufacturing, and power generation.

"Our collaboration with Double Zero Holdings reflects our commitment to innovative, sustainable solutions," SJ Environmental Director John Chappell adds. "Together, we're setting a new standard for energy production, delivering hydrogen and food-grade CO₂ where natural gas would typically be flared."

"To solve the climate crisis, confidence in emissions data is crucial." Photo via Getty Images

Expert: Using data to reduce Houston’s oil and gas carbon footprint

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Sustainability has been top of mind for all industries as we witness movements towards reducing carbon emissions. For instance, last year, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a new rule that requires companies to disclose certain climate-related activities in their reporting on a federal level. Now, industries and cities are scrambling to ensure they have strategies in the right place.

While the data behind sustainability poses challenges across industries, it is particularly evident in oil and gas, as their role in energy transition is of the utmost importance, especially in Texas. We saw this at the COP26 summit in Glasgow in November 2021, for example, in the effort to reduce carbon emissions on both a national and international scale and keep global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius.

The event also made it clear achieving this temperature change to meet carbon neutrality by 2030 won’t be possible if organizations rely on current methods and siloed data. In short, there is a data problem associated with recent climate goals. So, what does that mean for Houston’s oil and gas industry?

Climate is a critical conversation – and tech can help

Houston has long been considered the oil and gas capital of the world, and it is now the epicenter of energy transition. You can see this commitment by the industry in the nature of the conferences as well as the investment in innovation centers.

In terms of the companies themselves, over the past few years each of the major oil and gas players have organized and grown their low carbon business units. These units are focused on bringing new ideas to the energy ecosystem. The best part is they are not working alone but joining forces to find solutions. One of the highest profile examples is ExxonMobil’s Carbon Capture and Underground Storage project (CCUS) which directly supports the Paris Agreement.

Blockchain technology is needed to improve transparency and traceability in the energy sector and backing blockchain into day-to-day business is key to identifying patterns and making decisions from the data.

The recent Blockchain for Oil and Gas conference, for instance, focused on how blockchain can help curate emissions across the ecosystem. Recent years have also seen several additional symposiums and meetings – such as the Ion and

Greentown Houston – that focus on helping companies understand their carbon footprint.

How do we prove the data?

The importance of harmonizing data will become even more important as the SEC looks to bring structure to sustainability reporting. As a decentralized, immutable ledger where data can be inputted and shared at every point of action, blockchain works by storing information in interconnected blocks and providing a value-add for insuring carbon offsets. To access the data inside a block, users first need to communicate with it. This creates a chain of information that cannot be hacked and can be transmitted between all relevant parties throughout the supply chain. Key players can enter, view, and analyze the same data points securely and with assurance of the data’s accuracy.

Data needs to move with products throughout the supply chain to create an overall number for carbon emissions. Blockchain’s decentralization offers value to organizations and their respective industries so that higher quantities of reliable data can be shared between all parties to shine a light on the areas they need to work on, such as manufacturing operations and the offsets of buildings. Baking blockchain into day-to-day business practice is key in identifying patterns over time and making data-backed decisions.

Oil and gas are key players

Cutting emissions is not a new practice of the oil and gas industry. In fact, they’ve been cutting emissions estimates by as much as 50 percent to avoid over-reporting.

The traditional process of reporting data has also been time-consuming and prone to human error. Manually gathering data across multiple sources of information delivers no real way to trace this information across supply chains and back to the source. And human errors, even if they are accidental, pose a risk to hefty fines from regulatory agencies.

It’s a now-or-never situation. The industry will need to pivot their approaches to data gathering, sharing, and reporting to commit to emissions reduction. This need will surely accelerate the use of technologies, like blockchain, to be a part of the energy transition. While the climate challenges we face are alarming, they provide the basis we need for technological innovation and the ability to accurately report emissions to stay in compliance.

The Energy Capital of the World, for good

To solve the climate crisis, confidence in emissions data is crucial. Blockchain provides that as well as transparency and reliability, all while maintaining the highest levels of security. The technology provides assurance that the data from other smart technologies, like connected sensors and the Internet of Things (IoT), is trustworthy and accurate.

The need for good data, new technology, and corporate commitment are all key to Houston keeping its title as the energy capital of the world – based on traditional fossil fuels as well as transitioning to clean energy.

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John Chappell is the director of energy business development at BlockApps. This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Texas House Democrats urge Trump administration to restore $250M solar grant

solar grants

Eight Democratic members of the U.S. House from Texas, including two from Houston, are calling on the Trump administration to restore a nearly $250 million solar energy grant for Texas that’s being slashed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

In a letter to Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, and Russell Vought, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the House members urged the two officials to reinstate the nearly $250 million grant, which was awarded to Texas under the $7 billion Biden-era Solar for All program. The Texas grant was designed to assist 28,000 low-income households in installing solar panels, aiming to reduce their energy bills.

“This administration has improperly withheld billions in congressionally appropriated funding that was intended to benefit everyday Americans,” the letter stated.

The letter claimed that numerous court rulings have determined the EPA cannot repeal already allocated funding.

“Congress made a commitment to families, small businesses, and communities across this country to lower their utility bills and reduce harmful pollution through investments in clean energy. The Solar for All program was part of that commitment, and the EPA’s actions to rescind this funding effectively undermine that congressional intent,” the House members wrote.

The six House members who signed the letter are:

  • U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia of Houston
  • U.S. Rep. Al Green of Houston
  • U.S. Rep. Greg Casar of Austin
  • U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Dallas
  • U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin
  • U.S. Rep. Julie Johnson of Dallas
  • U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth

The nearly $250 million grant was awarded last year to the Harris County-led Texas Solar for All Coalition.

In a post on the X social media platform, Zeldin said the recently passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” killed the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which would have financed the $7 billion Solar for All program.

“The bottom line is this: EPA no longer has the statutory authority to administer the program or the appropriated funds to keep this boondoggle alive,” Zeldin said.

Energy Tech Nexus announces international startups to pitch at Pilotathon

Ready, Set, Pitch

Energy Tech Nexus will host its Pilotathon and Showcase as part of Houston Energy & Climate Startup Week next Tuesday, Sept. 16, featuring insightful talks from industry leaders and pitches from an international group of companies in the clean energy space.

This year's event will center around the theme "Energy Access and Resilience." Attendees will hear pitches from nine Pilotathon pitch companies, as well as the 14 companies that were named to Energy Tech Nexus' COPILOT accelerator earlier this year.

COPILOT partners with Browning the Green Space, a nonprofit that promotes diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the clean energy and climatetech sectors. The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN²) at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory backs the COPILOT accelerator, where companies are tasked with developing pilot projects for their innovations.

The nine Pilotathon pitch companies include:

  • Ontario-based AlumaPower, which has developed a breakthrough technology that converts the aluminum-air battery into a "galvanic generator," a long-duration energy source that runs on aluminum as a fuel
  • Calgary-based BioOilSolv, a chemical manufacturing company that has developed cutting-edge biomass-derived solvents
  • Atlanta-based Cultiv8 Fuels, which creates high-quality renewable fuel products derived from hemp
  • Newfoundland-based eDNAtec Inc., a leader in environmental genomics that analyzes biodiversity and ecological health
  • Oregon-based Espiku Inc., which designs and develops water treatment and mineral extraction technologies that rely on low-pressure evaporative cycles
  • New York-based Fast Metals Inc., which has developed a chemical process to extract valuable metals from complex toxic mine tailings that is capable of producing iron, aluminum, scandium, titanium and other rare earth elements using industrial waste and waste CO2 as inputs
  • New Jersey-based Metal Light Inc., which is building a circular, solid metal fuel that will serve as a replacement for diesel fuel
  • Glasgow-based Novosound, which designs and manufactures innovative ultrasound sensors using a thin-film technique to address the limitations of traditional ultrasound with applications in industrial, medical and wearable markets
  • Calgary-based Serenity Power, which has developed a cutting-edge solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology

The COPILOT accelerator companies include:

  • Accelerate Wind
  • Aquora Biosystems Inc.
  • EarthEn
  • Electromaim
  • EnKoat
  • GeoFuels
  • Harber Coatings Inc.
  • Janta Power
  • NanoSieve
  • PolyQor Inc.
  • Popper Power
  • Siva Powers America
  • ThermoShade
  • V-Glass Inc.

Read more about them here.

The Pilotathon will also include a keynote from Taylor Chapman, investment manager at New Climate Ventures; Deanna Zhang, CEO at V1 Climate Solutions; and Jolene Gurevich, director of fellowship experience at Breakthrough Energy. The Texas Climate Tech Collective will present its latest study on the Houston climate tech and innovation ecosystem.

CEOs Moji Karimi of Cemvita, Laureen Meroueh of Hertha Metals and others will also participate in a panel on successful pilots. Investors from NetZero Ventures, Halliburton Labs, Chevron, Saudi Aramco, Prithvi VC and other organizations will also be on-site. Find registration information here.