New Mexico court upholds emissions crackdown impacting oil, gas operations along Texas border

eyes on the west

Some of those counties affected include production hot spots within the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and the Permian Basin, which straddles the New Mexico-Texas line. Photo via Getty Images

The New Mexico Court of Appeals has upheld regulations aimed at cracking down on emissions in one of the nation’s top-producing oil and gas states.

The case centered on a rule adopted in 2022 by state regulators that called for curbing the pollutants that chemically react in the presence of sunlight to create ground-level ozone, commonly known as smog. High ozone levels can cause respiratory problems, including asthma and chronic bronchitis.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham's administration has long argued that the adoption of the ozone precursor rule along with regulations to limit methane emissions from the industry were necessary to combat climate change and meet federal clean air standards.

New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney said the court's decision on Wednesday affirmed that the rule was properly developed and there was substantial evidence to back up its approval by regulators.

“These rules aren’t going anywhere,” Kenney said in a statement to The New Mexican, suggesting that the industry stop spending resources on legal challenges and start working to comply with New Mexico's requirements.

The Independent Petroleum Association of New Mexico had argued in its appeal that the rule disproportionately affected independent operators.

“The administration needs to stop its ‘death by a thousand cuts’ hostility to the smaller, family-owned, New Mexico-based operators,” the group's executive director, Jim Winchester, said in an email to the newspaper.

The group is considering its legal options.

Under the rule, oil and gas operators must monitor emissions for smog-causing pollutants — nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds — and regularly check for and fix leaks.

The rule applies to eight counties — Chaves, Doña Ana, Eddy, Lea, Rio Arriba, Sandoval, San Juan and Valencia — where ozone pollutants have reached at least 95% of the federal ambient air quality standard. Some of those counties include production hot spots within the San Juan Basin in northwestern New Mexico and the Permian Basin, which straddles the New Mexico-Texas line.

The industry group had argued that Chaves and Rio Arriba counties shouldn’t be included. The court disagreed, saying those counties are located within broader geographic regions that did hit that 95% threshold.

Ten-year-old radioactive waste is currently being debated about by New Mexico officials. Photo via Getty Images

Texas, New Mexico officials contemplate what to do with nuclear waste

in debate

Federal officials gathered Tuesday in southern New Mexico to mark the 25th anniversary of the nation’s only underground repository for radioactive waste resulting from decades of nuclear research and bomb making.

Carved out of an ancient salt formation about half a mile (800 meters) deep, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant outside Carlsbad has taken in around 13,850 shipments from more than a dozen national laboratories and other sites since 1999.

The anniversary comes as New Mexico raises concerns about the federal government’s plans for repackaging and shipping to WIPP a collection of drums filled with the same kind of materials that prompted a radiation release at the repository in 2014.

That mishap contaminated parts of the underground facility and forced an expensive, nearly three-year closure. It also delayed the federal government’s multibillion-dollar cleanup program and prompted policy changes at labs and other sites across the U.S.

Meanwhile, dozens of boxes containing drums of nuclear waste that were packed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory to be stored at WIPP were rerouted to Texas, where they've remained ever since at an above-ground holding site.

After years of pressure from Texas environmental regulators, the U.S. Department of Energy announced last year that it would begin looking at ways to treat the waste so it could be safely transported and disposed of at WIPP.

But the New Mexico Environment Department is demanding more safety information, raising numerous concerns in letters to federal officials and the contractor that operates the New Mexico repository.

“Parking it in the desert of West Texas for 10 years and shipping it back does not constitute treatment,” New Mexico Environment Secretary James Kenney told The Associated Press in an interview. “So that’s my most substantive issue — that time does not treat hazardous waste. Treatment treats hazardous waste.”

The 2014 radiation release was caused by improper packaging of waste at Los Alamos. Investigators determined that a runaway chemical reaction inside one drum resulted from the mixing of nitrate salts with organic kitty litter that was meant to keep the interior of the drum dry.

Kenney said there was an understanding following the breach that drums containing the same materials had the potential to react. He questioned how that risk could have changed since the character and composition of the waste remains the same.

Scientists at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque were contracted by the DOE to study the issue. They published a report in November stating that the federal government's plan to repackage the waste with an insulating layer of air-filled glass micro-bubbles would offer “additional thermal protection."

The study also noted that ongoing monitoring suggests that the temperature of the drums is decreasing, indicating that the waste is becoming more stable.

DOE officials did not immediately answer questions about whether other methods were considered for changing the composition of the waste, or what guarantees the agency might offer for ensuring another thermal reaction doesn't happen inside one of the drums.

The timetable for moving the waste also wasn't immediately clear, as the plan would need approval from state and federal regulators.

Kenney said some of the state's concerns could have been addressed had the federal government consulted with New Mexico regulators before announcing its plans. The state in its letters pointed to requirements under the repository's permit and federal laws for handling radioactive and hazardous wastes.

Don Hancock, with the Albuquerque-based watchdog group Southwest Research and Information Center, said shipments of the untreated waste also might not comply with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's certification for the containers that are used.

“This is a classic case of waste arriving somewhere and then being stranded — 10 years in the case of this waste,” Hancock said. “That’s a lesson for Texas, New Mexico, and any other state to be sure that waste is safe to ship before it’s allowed to be shipped.”

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Houston climatech incubator names new CFO

onboarding

Greentown Labs, a climatech incubator with locations in Houston and Somerville, Massachusetts, has hired Naheed Malik as its chief financial officer. In her new role, she oversees finance, accounting and human resources.

Malik previously worked at American Tower Corp., an owner of wireless communication towers. During her 12-year tenure there, she was vice president of financial planning and analysis, and vice president of corporate finance.

Before American Tower, Malik led financial planning and analysis at Wolters Kluwer Health, and was a management consultant at Kearney and an audit CPA at EY.

Kevin Dutt, Greentown’s interim CEO, says in a news release that Malik’s “deep expertise will be a boon for Greentown as we seek to serve even more climatech startups in our home states of Massachusetts and Texas, and beyond.”

“I am delighted to join Greentown at such an exciting time in its organizational growth,” Malik says. “As a nonprofit that’s deeply dedicated to its mission of supporting climatech innovation, Greentown is poised to build on its impressive track record and expand its impact in the years to come.”

Greentown bills itself as North America’s largest incubator for climatech startups. Today, it’s home to more than 200 startups. Since its founding in 2011, Greentown has nurtured more than 575 startups that have raised over $8.2 billion in funding.

Last year, Greentown’s CEO and president Kevin Knobloch announced that he would be stepping down in July 2024, after less than a year in the role. The incubator. About a month before the announcement, Knobloch reported that Greentown would reduce its staff by 30 percent, eliminating roles in Boston and Houston. He noted changes in leadership, growth of the team and adjustments following the pandemic.

Greentown plans to announce its new permanent CEO by the end of the month.

Being prepared: Has the Texas grid been adequately winterized?

Winter in Texas

Houstonians may feel anxious as the city and state brace for additional freezing temperatures this winter. Every year since 2021’s Winter Storm Uri, Texans wonder whether the grid will keep them safe in the face of another winter weather event. The record-breaking cold temperatures of Uri exposed a crucial vulnerability in the state’s power and water infrastructure.

According to ERCOT’s 6-day supply and demand forecast from January 3, 2025, it expected plenty of generation capacity to meet the needs of Texans during the most recent period of colder weather. So why did the grid fail so spectacularly in 2021?

Demand for electricity surged as millions of people tried to heat their homes.
ERCOT was simply not prepared despite previous winter storms of similar intensity to offer lessons in similarities.
The state was highly dependent on un-winterized natural gas power plants for electricity.
The Texas grid is isolated from other states.
Failures of communication and coordination between ERCOT, state officials, utility companies, gas suppliers, electricity providers, and power plants contributed to the devastating outages.

The domino effect resulted in power outages for millions of Texans, the deaths of hundreds of Texans, billions of dollars in damages, with some households going nearly a week without heat, power, and water. This catastrophe highlighted the need for swift and sweeping upgrades and protections against future extreme weather events.

Texas State Legislature Responds

Texas lawmakers proactively introduced and passed legislation aimed at upgrading the state’s power infrastructure and preventing repeated failures within weeks of the storm. Senate Bill 3 (SB3) measures included:

Requirements to weatherize gas supply chain and pipeline facilities that sell electric energy within ERCOT.
The ability to impose penalties of up to $1 million for violation of these requirements.
Requirement for ERCOT to procure new power sources to ensure grid reliability during extreme heat and extreme cold.
Designation of specific natural gas facilities that are critical for power delivery during energy emergencies.
Development of an alert system that is to be activated when supply may not be able to meet demand.
Requirement for the Public Utility Commission of Texas, or PUCT, to establish an emergency wholesale electricity pricing program.

Texas Weatherization by Natural Gas Plants

In a Railroad Commission of Texas document published May 2024 and geared to gas supply chain and pipeline facilities, dozens of solutions were outlined with weatherization best practices and approaches in an effort to prevent another climate-affected crisis from severe winter weather.

Some solutions included:

Installation of insulation on critical components of a facility.
Construction of permanent or temporary windbreaks, housing, or barriers around critical equipment to reduce the impact of windchill.
Guidelines for the removal of ice and snow from critical equipment.
Instructions for the use of temporary heat systems on localized freezing problems like heating blankets, catalytic heaters, or fuel line heaters.

According to Daniel Cohan, professor of environmental engineering at Rice University, power plants across Texas have installed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weatherization upgrades to their facilities. In ERCOT’s January 2022 winterization report, it stated that 321 out of 324 electricity generation units and transmission facilities fully passed the new regulations.

Is the Texas Grid Adequately Winterized?

Utilities, power generators, ERCOT, and the PUCT have all made changes to their operations and facilities since 2021 to be better prepared for extreme winter weather. Are these changes enough? Has the Texas grid officially been winterized?

This season, as winter weather tests Texans, residents may potentially experience localized outages. When tree branches cannot support the weight of the ice, they can snap and knock out power lines to neighborhoods across the state. In the instance of a downed power line, we must rely on regional utilities to act quickly to restore power.

The specific legislation enacted by the Texas state government in response to the 2021 disaster addressed to the relevant parties ensures that they have done their part to winterize the Texas grid.

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Sam Luna is director at BKV Energy, where he oversees brand and go-to-market strategy, customer experience, marketing execution, and more.

This article first appeared on our sister site, InnovationMap.com.

Halliburton names 5 clean energy startups to latest incubator cohort

clean team

Halliburton Labs has named five companies to its latest cohort, including one from Texas.

All of the companies are working to help accelerate the future of the energy industry in different ways. The incubator aims to advance the companies’ commercialization with support from Halliburton's network, facilities and financing opportunities.

The five new members include:

360 Energy, an Austin-based in-field computing company with technology that is able to capture flared or stranded gas and monetize it through modular data centers
Cella, a New York-based mineral storage company that provides end-to-end services, from resource assessment to proprietary injection technology, and monitoring techniques to provide geologic carbon storage solutions
Espiku, an engineering services company based in Bend, Oregon, that finds solutions that advance water and minerals recovery from brines and industrial-produced water streams
Mitico, based in Los Angeles, that offers technology services to capture carbon dioxide by using its patent-pending granulated metal carbonate sorption technology (GMC) that captures more than 95% of the CO2 emitted from post-combustion point sources
NuCube, a Pasadena, California-based company with a nuclear fission reactor under development

“We welcome these innovative energy startups,” Dale Winger, managing director of Halliburton Labs, said in a news release. “We are eager to help these participant companies use their time and capital efficiently to progress new solutions that meet industry requirements for cost, reliability, and sustainability.”

Halliburton Labs also announced that it will host the Finalists Pitch Day on March 26, 2025, in Denver for energy and decarbonization industry innovators, startups and investors ahead of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Industry Growth Forum. The pitch event will precede registration and the opening reception of the NREL forum. Find more information here.

Adena Power, an Ohio-based clean energy startup, was the latest to join Halliburton Labs prior to the new cohort. The company used three patented materials to produce a sodium-based battery that delivers clean, safe and long-lasting energy storage.

The incubator also named San Francisco-based venture capital investor Pulakesh Mukherjee, partner at Imperative Ventures, which specializes in hard tech decarbonization startups, to its advisory board last spring.

Read more about the incubator's 2023 cohort here.

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