Houston just made a list that no one wants it to be on.
Data compiled by the National Public Utilities Council ranks Houston as the 15th most polluted city in the U.S. No other Texas city appears in the ranking. Three California cities — Bakersfield, Visalia, and Fresno — took the top three spots.
The ranking considers a city’s average volume of fine particulate matter in the air per year. Fine particulate matter (formally known as PM2.5) includes soot, soil dust, and sulphates.
The council based its ranking on the average annual concentration of PM2.5 as measured in micrograms per cubic meter of air, known as µg/m3. The ranking lists Houston’s average annual µg/m3 as 11.4. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends a top µg/m3 of 5, while the American Lung Association sets 9 µg/m as an average annual guideline.
A report released in 2024 by Smart Survey found that the Houston area had just 38 days of good air quality the previous year.
“Most of Houston’s air pollution comes from industrial sources and diesel engines, although sources as diverse as school buses and meat cooking also contribute to … the problem,” the nonprofit Air Alliance Houston says.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says PM2.5 poses “the greatest risk to health” of any particulate matter. Among other health issues, fine particulate matter contributes to cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, and chronic pulmonary disease.
Among the sources of PM2.5 are wildfires, wood-burning stoves, and coal-fired plants, according to the American Lung Association.
The WHO says air pollution causes 7 million deaths annually and may cost the global economy $18 trillion to 25 trillion by 2060. With 70 percent of the population expected to live in urban centers by mid-century, cities are at the forefront of efforts to reduce pollution, according to National Public Utilities Council.
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Rice University spinout lands $500K NSF grant to boost chip sustainability
cooler computing
HEXAspec, a spinout from Rice University's Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, was recently awarded a $500,000 National Science Foundation Partnership for Innovation grant.
The team says it will use the funding to continue enhancing semiconductor chips’ thermal conductivity to boost computing power. According to a release from Rice, HEXAspec has developed breakthrough inorganic fillers that allow graphic processing units (GPUs) to use less water and electricity and generate less heat.
The technology has major implications for the future of computing with AI sustainably.
“With the huge scale of investment in new computing infrastructure, the problem of managing the heat produced by these GPUs and semiconductors has grown exponentially. We’re excited to use this award to further our material to meet the needs of existing and emerging industry partners and unlock a new era of computing,” HEXAspec co-founder Tianshu Zhai said in the release.
HEXAspec was founded by Zhai and Chen-Yang Lin, who both participated in the Rice Innovation Fellows program. A third co-founder, Jing Zhang, also worked as a postdoctoral researcher and a research scientist at Rice, according to HEXAspec's website.
The HEXASpec team won the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship's H. Albert Napier Rice Launch Challenge in 2024. More recently, it also won this year's Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition during CERAWeek in the TEX-E student track, taking home $25,000.
"The grant from the NSF is a game-changer, accelerating the path to market for this transformative technology," Kyle Judah, executive director of Lilie, added in the release.
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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.
Houston renewable energy retailer expands nationally and more news to know
Trending News
Editor's note: The top Houston energy transition news of June 2025 includes Rhythm's national expansion, CenterPoint's grid resiliency efforts, and an exciting research discovery. Get the details on the most-read EnergyCapitalHTX stories from June 15-30 below:
1. Houston's Rhythm Energy expands nationally with clean power acquisition
PJ Popovic, founder and CEO of Houston-based Rhythm Energy, which has acquired Inspire Clean Energy. Photo courtesy of Rhythm
Houston-based Rhythm Energy Inc. has acquired Inspire Clean Energy for an undisclosed amount. The deal allows Rhythm to immediately scale outside of Texas and into the Northeast, Midwest and mid-Atlantic regions.
Inspire offers subscription-based renewable electricity plans to customers in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Ohio, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. By combining forces, Rhythm will now be one of the largest independent green-energy retailers in the country. Continue reading.
2. CenterPoint reaches agreement on SRP to significantly reduce outages
CenterPoint says it will cut storm-related outages by 1 billion minutes with its new Systemwide Resiliency Plan. Photo via Getty Images
CenterPoint Energy has reached a settlement agreement with parties to its 2026-2028 Systemwide Resiliency Plan (SRP), which will represent the largest single grid resiliency investment in CenterPoint's history.
The plan is expected to reduce storm-related outages by 1 billion minutes for its 2.8 million customers by 2029 and build on the first two phases of the company's Greater Houston Resiliency Initiative (GHRI). This SRP is designed to further address the impacts of extreme weather threats. Continue reading.
3. Enbridge activates first solar power project in Texas
Enbridge Inc. is now generating 130 megawatts of energy from its Orange Grove solar project near Corpus Christi. Photo courtesy Enbridge
Canadian energy company Enbridge Inc., whose gas transmission and midstream operations are based in Houston, has flipped the switch on its first solar power project in Texas.
The Orange Grove project, about 45 miles west of Corpus Christi, is now generating 130 megawatts of energy that feeds into the grid operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). Orange Grove features 300,000 solar panels installed on more than 920 acres in Jim Wells County. Construction began in 2024. Continue reading.
4. Texas drivers continue to pump the brakes on EVs, shows new report
Texas falls among the middle of the pack when it comes to EV adoption, according to a new report. Photo via Unsplash
Even though Texas is home to Tesla, a major manufacturer of electric vehicles, motorists in the Lone Star State aren’t in the fast lane when it comes to getting behind the wheel of an EV.
U.S. Department of Energy data compiled by Visual Capitalist shows Texas has 689.9 EV registrations per 100,000 people, putting it in 20th place for EV adoption among the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Continue reading.
5. Houston team’s discovery brings solid-state batteries closer to EV use
Houston researchers have uncovered why solid-state batteries break down and what could be done to slow the process. Photo via Getty Images.
A team of researchers from the University of Houston, Rice University and Brown University has uncovered new findings that could extend battery life and potentially change the electric vehicle landscape.
The team recently published its findings in the journal Nature Communications. The work deployed a powerful, high-resolution imaging technique known as operando scanning electron microscopy to better understand why solid-state batteries break down and what could be done to slow the process. Continue reading.
Rice research team's study keeps CO2-to-fuel devices running 50 times longer
new findings
In a new study published in the journal Science, a team of Rice University researchers shared findings on how acid bubbles can improve the stability of electrochemical devices that convert carbon dioxide into useful fuels and chemicals.
The team led by Rice associate professor Hoatian Wang addressed an issue in the performance and stability of CO2 reduction systems. The gas flow channels in the systems often clog due to salt buildup, reducing efficiency and causing the devices to fail prematurely after about 80 hours of operation.
“Salt precipitation blocks CO2 transport and floods the gas diffusion electrode, which leads to performance failure,” Wang said in a news release. “This typically happens within a few hundred hours, which is far from commercial viability.”
By using an acid-humidified CO2 technique, the team was able to extend the operational life of a CO2 reduction system more than 50-fold, demonstrating more than 4,500 hours of stable operation in a scaled-up reactor.
The Rice team made a simple swap with a significant impact. Instead of using water to humidify the CO2 gas input into the reactor, the team bubbled the gas through an acid solution such as hydrochloric, formic or acetic acid. This process made more soluble salt formations that did not crystallize or block the channels.
The process has major implications for an emerging green technology known as electrochemical CO2 reduction, or CO2RR, that transforms climate-warming CO2 into products like carbon monoxide, ethylene, or alcohols. The products can be further refined into fuels or feedstocks.
“Using the traditional method of water-humidified CO2 could lead to salt formation in the cathode gas flow channels,” Shaoyun Hao, postdoctoral research associate in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice and co-first author, explained in the news release. “We hypothesized — and confirmed — that acid vapor could dissolve the salt and convert the low solubility KHCO3 into salt with higher solubility, thus shifting the solubility balance just enough to avoid clogging without affecting catalyst performance.”
The Rice team believes the work can lead to more scalable CO2 electrolyzers, which is vital if the technology is to be deployed at industrial scales as part of carbon capture and utilization strategies. Since the approach itself is relatively simple, it could lead to a more cost-effective and efficient solution. It also worked well with multiple catalyst types, including zinc oxide, copper oxide and bismuth oxide, which are allo used to target different CO2RR products.
“Our method addresses a long-standing obstacle with a low-cost, easily implementable solution,” Ahmad Elgazzar, co-first author and graduate student in chemical and biomolecular engineering at Rice, added in the release. “It’s a step toward making carbon utilization technologies more commercially viable and more sustainable.”
A team led by Wang and in collaboration with researchers from the University of Houston also shared findings on salt precipitation buildup and CO2RR in a recent edition of the journal Nature Energy. Read more here.