Houston-based geothermal energy startup releases promising results of Texas pilot

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Houston startup Sage Geosystems released the results of its pilot at a Shell-drilled oil well in the Rio Grande Valley’s Starr County. Photo via sagegeosystems.com

As it seeks an additional $30 million in series A funding, Houston startup Sage Geosystems has released promising results from a test of its technology for underground storage of geothermal energy.

Sage says the pilot project, conducted at a Shell-drilled oil well in the Rio Grande Valley’s Starr County, showed the company’s long-term energy storage can compete on a cost basis with lithium-ion battery storage, hydropower storage, and natural gas-powered peaker plants. Peaker plants supply power during periods of peak energy demand.

Furthermore, Sage’s geothermal technology will provide more power capacity at half the cost of other advanced geothermal systems, the company says.

Sage’s storage system retrofits oil and gas wells with the company’s geothermal technology. But the company says its technology “can be deployed virtually anywhere.”

The system relies on mechanical storage instead of battery storage. In mechanical storage, heat, water, or air works in tandem with compressors, turbines, and other machinery. By contrast, battery storage depends on chemistry to get the job done.

“We have cracked the code to provide the perfect complement to renewable energy. … The opportunities for our energy storage to provide power are significant — from remote mining operations to data centers to solving energy poverty in remote locations,” former Shell executive Cindy Taff, CEO of Sage, says in a September 12 news release.

Sage says its storage capacity can be connected to existing power grids, or it can develop microgrids that harness stored energy.

An August 2023 article in The New York Times explained that Sage “is pursuing fracked wells that act as batteries. When there’s surplus electricity on the grid, water gets pumped into the well. In times of need, pressure and heat in the fractures pushes water back up, delivering energy.”

The pilot project, a joint venture between Sage and the Bureau of Economic Ecology at the University of Texas at Austin, was performed as part of a feasibility study financed by the Air Force. Now that the test results are in, Sage plans to build a prototype geothermal project at the Air Force’s Ellington Field Joint Reserve Base in Houston.

Sage says another feasibility study is underway in the Middle East in partnership with an unnamed oil and gas company.

Founded in 2020, Sage plans to raise another $30 million to accompany its previous series A funding.

The Virya climate fund and Houston-based drilling contractor Nabors Industries helped finance the pilot project in Starr County.

Last year, Sage announced it received an undisclosed amount of equity from Houston-based Ignis H2 Energy, a geothermal exploration and development company, and Dutch energy company Geolog International. Also last year, Sage said Nabors and Virya had teamed up for a $12 million investment in the startup.

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Rice researchers' quantum breakthrough could pave the way for next-gen superconductors

new findings

A new study from researchers at Rice University, published in Nature Communications, could lead to future advances in superconductors with the potential to transform energy use.

The study revealed that electrons in strange metals, which exhibit unusual resistance to electricity and behave strangely at low temperatures, become more entangled at a specific tipping point, shedding new light on these materials.

A team led by Rice’s Qimiao Si, the Harry C. and Olga K. Wiess Professor of Physics and Astronomy, used quantum Fisher information (QFI), a concept from quantum metrology, to measure how electron interactions evolve under extreme conditions. The research team also included Rice’s Yuan Fang, Yiming Wang, Mounica Mahankali and Lei Chen along with Haoyu Hu of the Donostia International Physics Center and Silke Paschen of the Vienna University of Technology. Their work showed that the quantum phenomenon of electron entanglement peaks at a quantum critical point, which is the transition between two states of matter.

“Our findings reveal that strange metals exhibit a unique entanglement pattern, which offers a new lens to understand their exotic behavior,” Si said in a news release. “By leveraging quantum information theory, we are uncovering deep quantum correlations that were previously inaccessible.”

The researchers examined a theoretical framework known as the Kondo lattice, which explains how magnetic moments interact with surrounding electrons. At a critical transition point, these interactions intensify to the extent that the quasiparticles—key to understanding electrical behavior—disappear. Using QFI, the team traced this loss of quasiparticles to the growing entanglement of electron spins, which peaks precisely at the quantum critical point.

In terms of future use, the materials share a close connection with high-temperature superconductors, which have the potential to transmit electricity without energy loss, according to the researchers. By unblocking their properties, researchers believe this could revolutionize power grids and make energy transmission more efficient.

The team also found that quantum information tools can be applied to other “exotic materials” and quantum technologies.

“By integrating quantum information science with condensed matter physics, we are pivoting in a new direction in materials research,” Si said in the release.

Oxy subsidiary granted landmark EPA permits for carbon capture facility

making progress

Houston’s Occidental Petroleum Corp., or Oxy, and its subsidiary 1PointFive announced that the U.S Environmental Protection Agency approved its Class VI permits to sequester carbon dioxide captured from its STRATOS Direct Air Capture (DAC) facility near Odessa. These are the first such permits issued for a DAC project, according to a news release.

The $1.3 billion STRATOS project, which 1PointFive is developing through a joint venture with investment manager BlackRock, is designed to capture up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2 annually and is expected to begin commercial operations this year. DAC technology pulls CO2 from the air at any location, not just where carbon dioxide is emitted. Major companies, such as Microsoft and AT&T, have secured carbon removal credit agreements through the project.

The permits are issued under the Safe Drinking Water Act's Underground Injection Control program. The captured CO2 will be stored in geologic formations more than a mile underground, meeting the EPA’s review standards.

“This is a significant milestone for the company as we are continuing to develop vital infrastructure that will help the United States achieve energy security,” Vicki Hollub, Oxy president and CEO, said in a news release.“The permits are a catalyst to unlock value from carbon dioxide and advance Direct Air Capture technology as a solution to help organizations address their emissions or produce vital resources and fuels.”

Additionally, Oxy and 1PointFive announced the signing of a 25-year offtake agreement for 2.3 million metric tons of CO2 per year from CF Industries’ upcoming Bluepoint low-carbon ammonia facility in Ascension Parish, Louisiana.

The captured CO2 will be transported to and stored at 1PointFive’s Pelican Sequestration Hub, which is currently under development. Eventually, 1PointFive’s Pelican hub in Louisiana will include infrastructure to safely and economically sequester industrial emissions in underground geologic formations, similar to the STRATOS project.

“CF Industries’ and its partners' confidence in our Pelican Sequestration Hub is a validation of our expertise managing carbon dioxide and how we collaborate with industrial organizations to become their commercial sequestration partner,” Jeff Alvarez, President of 1PointFive Sequestration, said in a news release.

1PointFive is storing up to 20 million tons of CO2 per year, according to the company.

“By working together, we can unlock the potential of American manufacturing and energy production, while advancing industries that deliver high-quality jobs and economic growth,” Alvarez said in a news release.

Houston energy-focused AI platform raises $5M in Mercury-led seed round

fresh funding

Houston-based Collide, a provider of generative artificial intelligence for the energy sector, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Houston’s Mercury Fund.

Other investors in the seed round include Bryan Sheffield, founder of Austin-based Parsley Energy, which was acquired by Dallas-based Pioneer Natural Resources in 2021; Billy Quinn, founder and managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm Pearl Energy Investments; and David Albin, co-founder and former managing partner of Dallas-based private equity firm NGP Capital Partners.

“(Collide) co-founders Collin McLelland and Chuck Yates bring a unique understanding of the oil and gas industry,” Blair Garrou, managing partner at Mercury, said in a news release. “Their backgrounds, combined with Collide’s proprietary knowledge base, create a significant and strategic moat for the platform.”

Collide, founded in 2022, says the funding will enable the company to accelerate the development of its GenAI platform. GenAI creates digital content such as images, videos, text, and music.

Originally launched by Houston media organization Digital Wildcatters as “a professional network and digital community for technical discussions and knowledge sharing,” the company says it will now shift its focus to rolling out its enterprise-level, AI-enabled solution.

Collide explains that its platform gathers and synthesizes data from trusted sources to deliver industry insights for oil and gas professionals. Unlike platforms such as OpenAI, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot, Collide’s platform “uniquely accesses a comprehensive, industry-specific knowledge base, including technical papers, internal processes, and a curated Q&A database tailored to energy professionals,” the company said.

Collide says its approximately 6,000 platform users span 122 countries.

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