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Houston energy transition leader dies, leaves legacy of innovation, collaboration

remembering scott gale

Scott Gale, executive director for Halliburton Labs, has died after a hard-fought battle with cancer. Photo via Rice University

Houston energy and innovation leader Scott Gale died on September 24 after a years-long fight with cancer. He was 40 years old.

Gale was the inaugural executive director for Halliburton Labs, which launched in 2020. Prior to that role, he lead global strategy initiatives for Halliburton. A Brigham Young University graduate, he received his MBA from Rice University in 2019, where he co-founded the Jones Student Association for Executives. After his graduation, he served on the the Rice Business Alumni Association Board and the Energy Advisory Board for the Rice Alliance Clean Energy Accelerator.

"Scott made an impact with his incredible kindness, energy, and talent," Dale Winger, managing director at Halliburton Labs, tells InnovationMap. "Scott was passionate about his family, his friends, his community, and his work. He provided incredible creativity and drive to bring Halliburton Labs to life within Halliburton, and despite a terrible cancer diagnosis, Scott continued to collaborate and build connections that launched the inaugural Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week. Work and play were always fun with Scott. His generosity and dedication to strengthen the Houston innovation ecosystem will be missed, yet his legacy endures.”

Gale was also a voice actor and the co-host of two podcasts: Rice University's Owl Have You Know Podcast, which shares experiences of Rice's business community, and the Curiosity podcast, which explored optimism and curiosity with guests and co-host Brad Rossacci.

"A rebellious optimist at his core, Scott believed we need a biased toward action, a mission focused belief system, and a healthy dose of rebellion for good measure," Rossacci, who serves as creative director at Accenture, says. "Carving his own path in the universe, Scott discovered his life’s work and unceasingly committed himself to helping humanity deepen their curiosity, building connective tissue across society, and advancing the future of energy on the shoulders of the giants who came before him. Ultimately, fulfilling his infinite ambitions and creating an echo that will reverberate in the cosmos for eternity."

One month ago, he stepped away from his role at Halliburton Labs, sharing his cancer journey in a message shared on LinkedIn. In the post, he encouraged his whole community to "go out and live a life that echoes," and ended with "onward," something Gale regularly imparted when he spoke on progress within energy and innovation.

Earlier this month during the Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week, which Gale was instrumental in creating but unable to attend due to the progression of his illness, the Energy Tech Nexus awarded its Nexus Community Award to Gale, and his father, Andrew Gale, accepted the award on his behalf.

"He is very focused on the community in Houston and the tech industry," Andrew Gale said about his son when accepting the award, "he feels so honored to be given the opportunity to be able to have an influence."

In addition to his father and his mother, JoAnna, Scott is survived by his wife of 18 years, Nicole, and their four children, as well as his seven siblings — Siara, Shanna, Spencer, Seth, Shalya, Sam, and Shane. In honor of his brother, Sam launched a GoFundMe campaign for his nieces and nephew's education, and donations are currently being accepted.

In his obituary, his family shared something Scott regularly said as he battled his cancer with countless hospital visits and experimental treatments: “I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure if you die, the cancer dies at the same time. That’s not a loss. That’s a draw.”

Earlier this year, he joined the Houston Innovators Podcast to discuss Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week and call for collaboration within the ecosystem.

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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Baker Hughes to provide equipment for massive low-carbon ammonia plant

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Houston-based energy technology company Baker Hughes has been tapped to supply equipment for what will be the world’s largest low-carbon ammonia plant.

French technology and engineering company Technip Energies will buy a steam turbine generator and compression equipment from Baker Hughes for Blue Point Number One, a $4 billion low-carbon ammonia plant being developed in Louisiana by a joint venture comprising CF Industries, JERA and Mitsui & Co. Technip was awarded a contract worth at least $1.1 billion to provide services for the Blue Point project.

CF, a producer of ammonia and nitrogen, owns a 40 percent stake in the joint venture, with JERA, Japan’s largest power generator, at 35 percent and Mitsui, a Japanese industrial conglomerate, at 25 percent.

The Blue Point Number One project, to be located at CF’s Blue Point ammonia production facility, will be capable of producing about 1.4 million metric tons of low-carbon ammonia per year and permanently storing up to 2.3 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Construction of the ammonia-making facility is expected to start in 2026, with production of low-carbon ammonia set to get underway in 2029.

“Ammonia, as a lower-carbon energy source, is poised to play a pivotal role in enabling and accelerating global sustainable energy development,” Alessandro Bresciani, senior vice president of energy equipment at Baker Hughes, said in a news release.

Earlier this year, British engineering and industrial gas company Linde signed a long-term contract to supply industrial gases for Blue Point Number One. Linde Engineering Americas is based in Houston.

Houston expert asks: Is the Texas grid ready for the future?

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Texas has spent the past five years racing to strengthen its electric grid after Winter Storm Uri exposed just how vulnerable it was. Billions have gone into new transmission lines, grid hardening, and a surge of renewables and batteries. Those moves have made a difference, we haven’t seen another systemwide blackout like Uri, but the question now isn’t what’s been done, it’s whether Texas can keep up with what’s coming.

Massive data centers, electric vehicles, and industrial projects are driving electricity demand to unprecedented levels. NERC recently boosted its 10-year load forecast for Texas by more than 60%. McKinsey projects that U.S. electricity demand will rise roughly 40% by 2030 and double by 2050, with data centers alone accounting for as much as 11-12% of total U.S. electricity demand by 2030, up from about 4% today. Texas, already the top destination for new data centers, will feel that surge at a greater scale.

While the challenges ahead are massive and there will undoubtedly be bumps in the road (some probably big), we have an engaged Texas legislature, capable regulatory bodies, active non-profits, pragmatic industry groups, and the best energy minds in the world working together to make a market-based system work. I am optimistic Texas will find a way.

Why Texas Faces a Unique Grid Challenge

About 90% of Texas is served by a single, independent grid operated by ERCOT, rather than being connected to the two large interstate grids that cover the rest of the country. This structure allows ERCOT to avoid federal oversight of its market design, although it still must comply with FERC reliability standards. The trade-off is limited access to power from neighboring states during emergencies, leaving Texas to rely almost entirely on in-state generation and reserves when extreme weather hits.

ERCOT’s market design is also different. It’s an “energy-only” market, meaning generators are paid for electricity sold, not for keeping capacity available. While that lowers prices in normal times, it also makes it harder to finance backup, dispatchable generation like natural gas and batteries needed when the wind isn’t blowing or the sun isn’t shining.

The Risks Mounting

In Texas, solar and wind power supply a significant percentage of electricity to the grid. As Julie Cohn, a nonresident scholar at the Baker Institute, explains, these inverter‑based resources “connect through power electronics, which means they don’t provide the same physical signals to the grid that traditional generators do.” The Odessa incidents, where solar farms tripped offline during minor grid disturbances, showed how fragile parts of this evolving grid can be. “Fortunately, it didn’t result in customer outages, and it was a clear signal that Texas has the opportunity to lead in solving this challenge.”

Extreme weather adds more pressure while the grid is trying to adapt to a surge in use. CES research manager Miaomiao Rimmer notes: “Hurricane frequencies haven't increased, but infrastructure and population in their paths have expanded dramatically. The same hurricane that hit 70 years ago would cause far more damage today because there’s simply more in harm’s way.”

Medlock: “Texas has made significant strides in the last 5 years, but there’s more work to be done.”

Ken Medlock, Senior Director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University’s Baker Institute, argues that Texas’s problem isn’t a lack of solutions; it’s how quickly those solutions are implemented. He stresses that during the January 2024 cold snap, natural gas kept the grid stable, proving that “any system configuration with sufficient, dispatchable generation capacity would have kept the lights on.” Yet ERCOT load has exceeded dispatchable capacity with growing frequency since 2018, raising the stakes for future reliability.

Ken notes: “ERCOT has a substantial portfolio of options, including investment in dispatchable generation, storage near industrial users, transmission expansion, and siting generation closer to load centers. But allowing structural risks to reliability that can be avoided at a reasonable cost is unacceptable. Appropriate market design and sufficient regulatory oversight are critical.” He emphasizes that reliability must be explicitly priced into ERCOT’s market so backup resources can be built and maintained profitably. These resources, whether natural gas, nuclear, or batteries, cannot remain afterthoughts if Texas wants a stable grid.

Building a More Reliable Grid

For Texas to keep pace with rising demand and withstand severe weather, it must act decisively on multiple fronts, strengthening its grid while building for long-term growth.

  • Coordinated Planning: Align regulators, utilities, and market players to plan decades ahead, not just for next summer.
  • Balancing Clean and Reliable Power: Match renewable growth with flexible, dispatchable generation that can deliver power on demand.
  • Fixing Local Weak Spots: Harden distribution networks, where most outages occur, rather than focusing only on large-scale generation.
  • Market Reform and Technology Investment: Price reliability fairly and support R&D to make renewables strengthen, not destabilize, the grid.

In Conclusion

While Texas has undeniably improved its grid since Winter Storm Uri, surging electricity demand and intensifying weather mean the work is far from over. Unlike other states, ERCOT can’t rely on its neighbors for backup power, and its market structure makes new dispatchable resources harder to build. Decisive leadership, investment, and reforms will be needed to ensure Texas can keep the lights on.

It probably won’t be a smooth journey, but my sense is that Texas will solve these problems and do something spectacular. It will deliver more power with fewer emissions, faster than skeptics believe, and surprise us all.

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Scott Nyquist is a senior advisor at McKinsey & Company and vice chairman, Houston Energy Transition Initiative of the Greater Houston Partnership. The views expressed herein are Nyquist's own and not those of McKinsey & Company or of the Greater Houston Partnership. This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.

Houston companies partner to advance industrial carbon capture tech

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Carbon Clean and Samsung E&A, both of which maintain their U.S. headquarters in Houston, have formed a partnership to accelerate the global use of industrial carbon capture systems.

Carbon Clean provides industrial carbon capture technology. Samsung E&A offers engineering, construction and procurement services. The companies say their partnership will speed up industrial decarbonization and make carbon capture more accessible for sectors that face challenges in decarbonizing their operations.

Carbon Clean says its fully modular columnless carbon capture unit, known as CycloneCC, is up to 50 percent smaller than traditional units and each "train" can capture up to 100,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

“Our partnership with Samsung E&A marks a major milestone in scaling industrial carbon capture,” Aniruddha Sharma, chair and CEO of Carbon Clean, said in a news release.

Hong Namkoong, CEO of Samsung E&A, added that the partnership with Carbon Clean will accelerate the global rollout of carbon capture systems that “are efficient, reliable, and ready for the energy transition.”

Carbon Clean and Samsung E&A had previously worked together on carbon capture projects for Aramco, an oil and gas giant, and Modec, a supplier of floating production systems for offshore oil and gas facilities. Aramco’s Americas headquarters is also in Houston, as is Modec’s U.S. headquarters.

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