Houstonian brings natural, sustainable cleaning products to US with potential impact on agriculture industry

clean and green

What started as a way to bring natural cleaning products in from overseas has turned into a promising application for more sustainable agriculture solutions. Photo via LinkedIn

When Kristy Phillips sought out a more natural cleaning solution, she didn't realize she'd be opting for a more sustainable option too.

Phillips founded Clean Habits and introduced Synbio, a patented cleaning formula that combines a unique blend of prebiotics and probiotics for their signature five-day clean, to the United States.

“Actually, we are a synbiotic, which is a prebiotic and a probiotic fused together,” says Phillips, founder and CEO of Clean Habits. “And that's what gives us the five-day clean, and we also have the longest shelf life — three years — of any probiotic on the market.”

Phillips learned about the European product almost three months before the COVID-19 pandemic. She had heard of probiotics for gut health but had no idea about probiotic cleaning.

“When COVID actually hit, I went back and really started researching the manufacturer who is based in Europe and all of their pre- and probiotic cleaners,” remembers Phillips. “And I just found it to be so interesting that they were using natural probiotics from the dirt, from the soil, from Mother Earth. And they created this entire product line that they have been using for over 15 years. And they had so many clinical trials and hospital studies and university studies that were showing that these probiotic cleaners were working, and they were reducing bacteria, viruses, even viruses in air."

But Phillips soon learned more of the sustainability angle of the product.

“Not only were they in the cleaning spray sector, but they were also already in water purification. They were in agriculture for animal house farming. They were doing a big trial in the subway station in Milan, putting the probiotics through a big HVAC system. And I just thought, there must be something here.”

Phillips was right. After reaching out to the manufacturer, she asked if they had a distributor here in the United States. They didn't.

“Since they didn’t have a distributor here in the U.S., I got the products and tried them out for myself,” says Phillips. “They were chemical-free, non-toxic and eco-friendly and after comparing them side-by-side with the commercial cleaners we all grew up with like the Lysols, bleach, and 409s, I found that the probiotic cleaners not only worked on surface areas to remove bad bacteria and germs, they continued to work for up to five full days at 100 percent.

“The commercial cleaners did kill 99.99 percent of all bacteria and germs, but they only did it for 30 minutes. And then the bacteria and germs start to grow back. And I am like, you know, nobody tells you that in their marketing. So that is what started my journey on the probiotics and creating a line to bring to the market here in the United States.”

Moving forward, Phillips’ vision for Clean Habits will extend beyond just traditional cleaning products. She sees that she can also have an impact on the industrial and commercial side of things.

“Right now, we are doing testing in agriculture, and this is something that our manufacturers in Europe have already done and they have been extremely successful with it,” says Phillips. “The goal is to see if we could reduce the use of pesticides in farming and replace it with just misting and spraying with the probiotics.

“We already know that by incorporating the probiotics throughout water systems, that we can actually clean the water and take it back to 100 percent natural water or pure water. We can get rid of E. coli, MRSA, staph. And so, we are going to start working with the state of Texas and into animal house cleaning and farming and cleaning their water.”

Additionally, Clean Habits already has research that proves that by incorporating the probiotics, they can start eliminating the bird flu, which affected a lot of Texas chickens recently to where over 350,000 of them had to be put down.

“We’re really trying to change the faith there in agriculture,” says Phillips. “I mean, to me, it's amazing because when I first started this, I was just trying to launch some cleaning supplies, which is fantastic, but this product is so much more than a multi-purpose cleaning spray, your floor cleaner, your drain cleaner or your laundry detergent. This goes into cleaning water, which is everyone's basic right to have clean water. And the fact that we can do it by using these probiotics, to me, my little brain can't compute that part of it.

“And then when we really did start looking into the agriculture and how, by incorporating the probiotics into the animal house, the cleaning of the water, and putting it into their housing system, that we can reduce methane gas by 41 percent. That is huge. This can profoundly change and revolutionize industries. And to be a part of that, and I am so excited.”

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Chevron eyes $7B Texas power plant for Microsoft data center campus

power deal

Software giant Microsoft is negotiating exclusively with Houston-based oil and gas titan Chevron and investment firm Engine No. 1 about the development of a $7 billion power plant in West Texas that would supply electricity for a Microsoft data center campus.

The proposed natural-gas-fired plant initially would generate 2,500 megawatts of electricity, Bloomberg reports. The plant would be built near Pecos, a Permian Basin city, in an area where Microsoft plans to build a 2,500-megawatt data center campus on a 7,000-acre site.

A deal with Microsoft would secure a long-term customer for the plant’s output and help finance its construction, Bloomberg says. The project, expected to be producing power by 2030, still requires tax and environmental approvals as well an agreement to terms among Chevron, Engine No. 1, and Microsoft.

In a statement issued after Bloomberg reported the news, Chevron acknowledged it was in exclusive talks with Engine No. 1 and Microsoft, but the oil and gas company offered no details.

Chevron says the proposed plant “reflects an emerging shift in how power for AI is being developed, bringing energy supply closer to demand through co-located, behind-the-meter generation to deliver reliability while helping avoid added strain on regional electricity systems. It pairs sustained, always-on demand from advanced computing with proven capability to design, build, and operate large-scale energy infrastructure.”

Development of gas-powered electrical plants for AI data centers represents a new—and potentially lucrative— business line for Chevron. In 2025, Chevron, Engine No. 1 and GE Vernova announced a partnership to produce natural gas for AI data centers in the U.S.

Chevron’s collaboration with Engine No. 1 has already secured an order for seven large natural gas turbines from GE Vernova, according to Bloomberg.

“Energy is the key to America’s AI dominance,” Chris James, founder and chief investment officer of Engine No. 1, said last year. “By using abundant domestic natural gas to generate electricity directly connected to data centers, we can secure AI leadership, drive productivity gains across our economy, and restore America’s standing as an industrial superpower.”

8 CERAWeek 2026 takeaways from a new Houston energy leader

guest column

My first CERAWeek was a blur.

Having top energy executives, policymakers, and technologists all gathered in Houston—over 11,000 of them this year—was both overwhelming and energizing. The theme was “Convergence and Competition: Energy, Technology, and Geopolitics,” and walking through the George R. Brown Convention Center, it was immediately clear that this was no ordinary industry conference.

As a first-timer with a Greentown Labs lens, here’s what really stuck with me.

Disruption is the new normal

CERAWeek 2026 was set against the backdrop of conflict in the Middle East, the continued race to power AI, and a clear throughline: disruption is increasingly the new normal. You could feel it in every hallway conversation. The ongoing conflict in the Middle East, specifically Iran’s attacks on Qatar’s Ras Laffan facility and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, affected roughly 20% of the world’s liquified natural gas supply, and that was woven into nearly every conversation throughout the week.

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright opened the conference with “Energy is life,” then quickly turned to natural gas. “America’s superpower is natural gas,” he said, pointing to its role in industry, heat, electricity, fertilizer, exports, and leading AI and manufacturing. That set the tone early and it never really shifted.

AI is still everywhere, but the conversation has shifted

No surprise that AI dominated the agenda. But what struck me as a first-timer was how much the conversation had matured. The AI discussion has moved from general enthusiasm to a much more practical focus on real use cases and measurable outcomes.

NVIDIA, Anthropic, and CyrusOne joined the established tech presences of Microsoft, Google, and AWS, occupying the Innovation Agora’s new AI Hub, which displaced the hydrogen hub from prior years. That detail alone tells you something about where the energy conversation has shifted. Annual global investment in data centers reached $771 billion in 2025, nearly on par with oil and gas ($835 billion) and renewable energy ($798 billion). We are not talking about a niche technology story anymore. This is a capital story, an infrastructure story, and an energy story all at once.

The prevailing tone was uncertain; the gap between what is being announced and what can actually be delivered was the subtext of almost every conversation. Transmission takes over a decade to build. The new generation takes five to nine years. AI infrastructure moves on three-to-five-year timelines. The math doesn’t work yet, and everyone is aware.

Pitch competitions still draw crowds

The Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition at the McKinney Balcony was one of my favorite events of the week. Seeing Greentown members on that stage never gets old, but what really energized me was the broader mix: students, new founders, and veteran entrepreneurs in one space, all talking about how what they’re building is going to impact the world. S&P Global launched the NextGen cohort with 100+ graduate students from around the country getting a front-row seat to the energy sector.

Geothermal may have stolen the show

If I had to pick the most surprising theme of my first CERAWeek, it was geothermal. It drew the most consistent endorsement of the week, with Department of Energy representatives, oil and gas majors, and operators broadly aligned on its potential. Project InnerSpace hosted a dedicated Geothermal House for the first time, launching a standardized resource classification framework with the Society of Petroleum Engineers and an XPRIZE collaboration targeting surface-plant supply chain breakthroughs. For a sector that has lived in the shadows of wind and solar for years, CERAWeek 2026 was geothermal’s time to shine.

Wow, was I impressed with Melanie Nakagawa

Melanie Nakagawa, chief sustainability officer at Microsoft, delivered an impressive keynote during her fireside chat with Brad Burke. Her depth of experience, from the U.S. Department of State and venture capital to her current role at Microsoft, was matched only by her calm, hopeful demeanor. Leaders like her at the helm of climate action inspire genuine confidence in the future.

What about hydrogen?

Hydrogen was notably absent from the main stage. The AI Hub in the Innovation Agora displaced the hydrogen hub that had been a fixture in prior years. Seems like hydrogen still plays a role, but not as quickly or broadly as hoped. Blue hydrogen is moving forward cautiously. It wasn’t gone from the conversation entirely, but it no longer commands the room.

The label problem isn’t going away

Politics continues to polarize the industry. Climatetech, sustainability, cleantech — some labels carry broad objectives, others have become tribal signals. “Energy transition” for some means a replacement of fossil fuels; for others, it means an evolution across multiple dimensions simultaneously. CERAWeek 2026 showed an industry increasingly focused not on feel-good narratives about the future of energy, but on the harder questions of security, buildout, reliability, affordability, and competitiveness. A pragmatic shift may be the best answer to the label problem.

Collaboration isn’t optional—it’s strategic

The energy transition is no longer primarily an environmental story. It has become a technology and national competitiveness story. The problems are too big for any one company, sector, or country to solve alone. From incubators and investors to utilities and hyperscalers, the message was consistent all week: move together or we don’t move. S&P Global introduced “The Bridge,” a new venue specifically for energy-tech crossover conversations: a small but meaningful signal that even the conference organizers recognize that collaboration will get us further.

The scale and the energy in the room (pun intended) are what stood out most from my first CERAWeek. The industry knows what needs to get built. The question now is whether we can work together to build it fast enough.

See you next year, CERAWeek.

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Kelsey Kearns is director of Greentown Houston with more than a decade of experience in the technology sector. She served as director of community strategy for Greentown Houston from September 2025 to February 2026. Before that, she was director of business development for Howdy.com.

Houston nuclear startup launches at CERAWeek, plans Texas facility

going nuclear

A new nuclear energy startup launched last month during CERAWeek in the Bayou City.

FluxPoint Energy, the new Houston- and McLean, Virginia-based company, plans to develop the nation’s first new uranium conversion facility in more than 70 years, an effort CEO and founder Mike Chilton says is critical to unlocking the next phase of nuclear energy growth.

"Policymakers, utilities, and developers increasingly point to fuel availability as a limiting factor for America's nuclear reactors—both present and future," Chilton said in a news release. "Uranium conversion has become an unacceptable chokepoint in a global supply chain still dominated by foreign providers."

Chilton has held leadership roles at Pegasus-Global Holdings and GE Verona Hitachi Global Nuclear Fuels. Rodrigo Gonzalez Arbizu serves as COO and Christopher J. Rimel as chief of staff. The Board of Advisors includes energy leaders, including Jeff Lyash, John Sharp, Jane Stricker, Jennifer Skylakos, Leo Weitzenhoff and Jay Wileman.

FluxPoint’s planned facility will convert uranium oxide into uranium hexafluoride (UF6). Although FluxPoit’s new facility is still far off, the company announced it had secured a site and completed both market and feasibility studies. The specific area has not been revealed, only that it will be in Texas.

Discussions at CERAWeek revolved around securing reliable sources of uranium.

Nuclear energy production has been stagnant or even in slight decline since the 1990s. Concerns about nuclear waste and safety, as well as prohibitive costs, have kept new plants from being built, while the widespread availability of cheap natural gas has made investing in nuclear power less profitable. Many see the technology as dangerous and outdated.

However, as energy crises become more common, companies like FluxPoint are looking to restart the nuclear energy sector. The industry got a boost under the Biden Administration thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, which set goals of adding 35 gigawatts of new capacity by 2035.

Chilton participated in a panel on the best ways to ensure American nuclear plants have access to uranium, most of which is not mined in the United States.

"America cannot lead in nuclear energy while relying on foreign-controlled fuel processing," Chilton added. "FluxPoint was created to restore a critical piece of our nation's energy infrastructure—ensuring that U.S. reactors have access to a secure, domestic fuel supply. This is about energy security, economic strength, and global leadership."

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