Houston startup gears up to deliver geothermal energy

ready to drill

Criterion Energy Partners is aiming to be a next-gen energy company. Photo via Getty Images

Sean Marshall and Danny Rehg founded Criterion Energy Partners in 2020 with the hope that geothermal energy could be the cleaner, safer wave of the future. Less than three years later, the team is close to making their plan a reality thanks to a geothermal well that they hope to drill this year.

Entrepreneurship wasn’t always part of the plan for either partner. When Marshall enrolled in the MBA program at Rice University’s Jones School of Business in 2016, he had a successful career at Credit Suisse and had his eye set on a future political career. But then he met classmate Rehg, whose background was in petroleum engineering. Their wives were both attorneys in the Houston district attorney’s office and the couples became fast friends. They also realized that, as Marshall now puts it, Rehg knew how to drill wells and he knew how to make deals.

In the ensuing years, both Rehg and Marshall's careers evolved and, eventually, the pair started looking for other opportunities. That’s when they read an article in Rolling Stone about geothermal energy.

“It was really a place where it really felt like this was something we were put here to do,” says Marshall.

Marshall and Rehg spent the ensuing months “like rats in a dumpster” learning about the players and opportunities in the geothermal industry and built from there. They learned about Pleasant Bayou Power Plant, a 1989 geothermal energy project based in Brazoria County that was backed by the U.S. Department of Energy.

Last summer, Criterion Energy Partners, a member of Greentown Houston, closed on a 10,000-acre lease around the site of Pleasant Bayou.

"We hope by the end of this year we will be generating electrons,” says Marshall.

Though the company has a patented technology that connects wells to the grid, called Criterion Geothermal System, Marshall says that some of the best advice he’s gotten was, “Don’t fall in love with your technology; fall in love with the problem.” The 2021 Texas freeze reminded the founders what that was.

“People were looking for cleaner, lower-emission power sources and [there was] a need for energy resiliency,” says Marshall, explaining that the freeze created an ideal situation for the company, as people began to think more outside the grid.

The year 2022 was a big one for Criterion Energy Partners. Oil and gas powerhouse Patterson-UTI invested in the company, followed by funding from the Department of Energy. The money not only allowed Criterion Energy Partners to lease their land, they are also now paying 12 salaries, including those of the founders. The team offices in The Cannon’s Esperson coworking space.

“Our mission is to make geothermal commercially viable everywhere,” says Marshall. “I still believe in that.”

However, Criterion Energy Partners may be even bigger than proving an alternative energy source. Marshall says that geothermal is the foundation on which they are building “a next-generation energy company.” Criterion Energy Partners could be the more stable basis for a whole new energy system.

Sean Marshall and Danny Rehg founded Criterion Energy Partners in 2020. Photos courtesy

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

Kanin Energy set up shop in Greentown Labs last year to grow its impact on the energy transition. Photo via Getty Images

This energy transition startup taps Houston to grow, build its waste-heat-to-power tech

eyes on hou

Waste heat is everywhere, but in Houston, the Energy Capital of the World, it is becoming a hot commodity. What is it? Janice Tran, CEO of Kanin Energy, uses the example of turning ore into steel.

“There’s a lot of heat involved in that chemical process,” she says. “It’s a waste of energy.”

But Kanin Energy can do something about that. Its waste-heat-to-power, or WHP, concept uses a technology called organic rankine cycle. Tran explains that heat drives a turbine that generates electricity.

“It’s a very similar concept to a steam engine,” she says. Tran adds that the best term for what Kanin Energy does is “waste heat recovery.”

Emission-free power should be its own virtuous goal, but for companies creating waste heat, it can be an expensive endeavor both in terms of capital and human resources to work on energy transition solutions. But Kanin Energy helps companies to decarbonize with no cost to them.

“We can pay for the projects, then we pay the customers for that heat. We turn a waste product into a revenue stream for our customer,” Tran explains. Kanin Energy then sells the clean power back to the facility or to the grid, hence decarbonizing the facility gratis. Financing, construction, and operations are all part of the package.

Kanin Energy began at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in the spring of 2020.

“We started like a lotus. A lotus grows in mud — you start in the worst conditions and everything is better and easier from there,” says Tran.

That tough birth has helped provide the team with a discipline and thoughtfulness that’s been key to the company’s culture. Remote work has forced the team to get procedures clearly in place and react efficiently.

Back in May of 2020, its inception took place in Calgary. But the team, which also includes CDO Dan Fipke and CTO Jake Bainbridge, began to notice that many of their customers were either based in Houston or had Houston ties.

A year ago, the Kanin team visited Houston to see if the city could be a fit for an office. In July of 2022, Tran opened Kanin Energy offices in Greentown Labs.

“We’re hiring and building our team office out of Greentown. It’s been really great for us,” she says.

With the company now in its commercialization stage, Tran says that becoming part of the Houston energy ecosystem has been invaluable for Kanin.

The investments being made in climate tech and in energy transition make Space City the right place for the company. For Canadian-born Kanin Energy, Houston is now home. Investors across the nation, including Texas, are now helping Kanin to blossom, much like the lotus.

Janice Tran is the CEO and co-founder of Kanin Energy. Photo via LinkedIn

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This article originally ran on InnovationMap.

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6 Houston companies earn recognition on Time’s global greentech list 2026

green giants

Six Houston-area businesses appear on Time magazine’s 2026 list of the world’s top greentech companies, with a high-flying name leading the pack.

The highest-ranked local company is Houston-based geothermal power producer Fervo Energy, which claims the No. 4 spot—up from No. 14 last year.

In May, Fervo raised nearly $1.9 billion in its IPO, making it the biggest-ever IPO in the clean energy sector. The company’s valuation now exceeds $10 billion.

Founded in 2017, Fervo borrows methods from the oil and gas sector to drill wells that go down vertically into hot rock before turning horizontal, letting water circulate through them and produce electricity from the heat it absorbs. Cape Station in Utah, the company's first utility-scale project, is set to start delivering power to the grid later this year, with capacity expected to grow to 100 megawatts by 2027.

Co-founder and CEO Tim Latimer tells Fast Company, which named him a 2026 Visionary of the Year, that he launched his career as a drilling engineer for fossil fuels, “but quickly became obsessed with this idea that the drilling techniques we were using would actually be transformative for the world of geothermal as well.”

Fast Company notes the geothermal power generated by Cape Station will be available 24/7, unlike wind and solar power.

“When you start adding something to the grid mix that’s affordable and works around the clock,” Latimer says, “that’s going to be a huge asset to meeting our country’s energy needs.”

Time teamed up with data provider Statista to compile the second annual ranking of the 250 top greentech companies in the world. Companies on the list either develop or provide green technology, products, or services that help ease or reverse the environmental impacts of human activity.

Statista gathered and analyzed data from more than 8,300 companies to create the list, and they were scored in three categories: positive environmental impact, innovation, and financial strength. Fervo earned a score of 94.63 out of 100.

Joining Fervo on this year’s list are:

Houston-based Quaise Energy (No. 78), which specializes in terawatt-scale geothermal power
The Woodlands-based Plus Power (No. 112), which develops, owns and operates battery storage projects
Houston-based Utility Global (No. 167), which develops decarbonization technology
Houston-based 1PointFive (No. 217), an Occidental Petroleum subsidiary that offers large-scale carbon removal and storage.
Houston-based Sage Geosystems (No. 250), which produces commercial-scale geothermal power

Earlier this year, six Houston-area companies landed on Time's list of top greentech companies in America: Fervo (No. 1), Quaise Energy (No. 49), Plus Power (No. 71), Utility Global (No. 98), Solugen (No. 199) and Noodoe (No. 215).

Houston-based Syzygy lands global customer for first commercial SAF plant

clean fuel deal

Houston-based Syzygy Plasmonics has secured a major future customer for its sustainable aviation fuel.

Syzygy announced this week that it has entered into a capacity reservation agreement with World Fuel Services, a global fuel distribution and logistics company.

Through the deal, World Fuel has reserved a portion of Syzygy's SAF production for future plants slated for Central and South America. The clean fuel will be produced at Syzygy’s NovaSAF-1 facility in Uruguay, which is moving toward construction.

The NovaSAF-1 will be the world's first electrified facility to convert biogas into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The facility is expected to produce over 350,000 gallons of SAF annually, which would be considered “a breakthrough in cost-effective, scalable clean fuel,” according to Syzygy.

The facility is expected to produce SAF with at least an 80 percent reduction in carbon intensity compared to Jet A fuel and make its first deliveries in 2028.

"Following NovaSAF-1, this agreement reflects continued interest in scalable pathways for producing SAF from biogas," Trevor Best, CEO of Syzygy Plasmonics, said in a news release. "Our NovaSAF platform is designed to deliver cost-competitive fuel while supporting the aviation sector's evolving regulatory and sustainability requirements."

Syzygy will make a portion of future production capacity available to World Fuel from its planned facilities, subject to the development and completion of those projects, according to the deal.

"We continue to evaluate supply opportunities that support increased access to lower carbon fuels in aviation, in line with emerging regulatory requirements and customer demand," Michael Ranger, senior vice president of supply EMEAA at World Fuel, added in the release. "Arrangements such as this are part of our ongoing efforts across the supply chain.”

Syzygy also secured an offtake agreement with Singapore-based commodity company Trafigura from NovaSAF-1 earlier this year.

Texas Gov. Abbott seeks data center crackdown as state grapples with growing power demand

growing pains

Just seven months ago, Gov. Greg Abbott trumpeted Google’s $40 billion plan to add three data center campuses in Texas. Now, amid growing public outcry over such projects, Abbott is pushing for a regulatory crackdown on data centers in the Lone Star State.

Abbott recently sent a letter to leaders of the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) proposing stricter oversight of the state’s data centers. Texas is home to more than 400 data centers, with many more on the way, and is poised to become the world’s largest data center market.

Among other things, Abbott wants to:

Ensure residential electric bills go down — not up — as data centers connect to ERCOT’s grid, which supplies power for about 90 percent of Texans.
Require data centers to cover the costs of upgrades to deliver electricity to the power-hungry facilities.
Repeal sales tax exemptions and other “outdated or unnecessary” financial incentives for data centers.
Institute “best practices,” such as property setbacks and noise-reduction technology, to ease the impact of data centers on nearby residents.
Demand that all new data centers, which use a tremendous amount of water, be built with water-efficient technology.
Require large data centers to generate annual reports on their use of electricity and water.

Abbott has set a July 17 deadline for the PUC and ERCOT to address his recommendations.

“As Texas continues to welcome innovation and investment, we must ensure that growth strengthens our people and their quality of life without placing undue burdens on Texans and local communities,” Abbott wrote.

Abbott’s call for tighter control of data centers has elicited both praise and skepticism.

In a social media post on X, Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows, a Lubbock Republican, thanked Abbott for seeking “accountability and reform” in the state’s data center industry. Burrows has made data centers one of his priority issues for the 2027 state legislative session.

State oil and gas regulator Wayne Christian, a member of the Texas Railroad Commission, weighed in with similarly positive comments about Abbott’s directive. He says an outright ban on data centers isn’t the answer to residents’ complaints about new facilities.

“The Texas way is not to answer innovation with government overreach or fear-driven bans,” Christian, whose agency wasn’t cited in Abbott’s letter, said in a statement posted on X. “Our job is to protect prosperity, safeguard taxpayers and ensure the infrastructure that powers our economy remains strong and reliable.”

Gina Hinojosa, an Austin Democrat who’s challenging Abbott in this November’s gubernatorial race, took issue with the governor’s edict on data centers.

“Greg Abbott is changing his tune on data centers because he knows his policies are unpopular,” Hinojosa, a state representative, wrote on X. “Nobody believes the arsonist is gonna be the one to put out the fire.”

Abbott’s call for stepped-up regulation of data centers echoes many of the concerns expressed by the state chapter of the Sierra Club, an environmental nonprofit.

“The growth of data centers reflects a broader transformation taking place across Texas,” the Sierra Club says on its website. “The state is becoming a hub for the technologies that will shape the future economy, from artificial intelligence to advanced computing and cloud services. At the same time, Texans deserve transparency about how these projects affect the communities where they are built.”

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