reduce, reuse, recycle

TotalEnergies shares big circular economy win at Texas plant

TotalEnergies has announced its Texas plant can produce sustainably certified polymers for a wide range of purposes. Photo via totalenergies.com

For the first time in the United States, a global energy company has converted plastic waste into circular polymers.

TotalEnergies announced its milestone that took place at its polypropylene plant in La Porte, Texas. The plant, according to the company, will produce sustainably certified polymers for a wide range of purposes, including food grade packaging.

"After Europe, this first production of circular polymers from advanced recycling in the United States is a new step forward in our commitment to meeting the global market's growing demand for more innovative and sustainable plastics, as well as in our ambition to produce one million tons of circular polymers a year by 2030," Heather Tomas, Vice President Polymers Americas, says in the news release.

New Hope Energy's recycling facility in Tyler, Texas, provided the feedstock, which was converted into monomers at BASF TotalEnergies Petrochemicals facility in Port Arthur, Texas. BTP is a joint venture between BASF and TotalEnergies.

"We are excited to partner with TotalEnergies in our mutual effort to transform plastic for a cleaner world," Rusty Combs, CEO of New Hope Energy, says in the release. "This supply agreement is an important step towards achieving New Hope's goal of creating pyrolysis projects at a scale that will materially improve the nation's plastic recycling performance. We are honored by the confidence TotalEnergies has placed in both our team and our robust technology."

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A View From HETI

A new joint venture will work on four projects supplying 5 gigawatts of power from combined-cycle power plants for the ERCOT and PJM Interconnection grids. Photo via Getty Images.

Houston-based power provider NRG Energy Inc. has formed a joint venture with two other companies to meet escalating demand for electricity to fuel the rise of data centers and the evolution of generative AI.

NRG’s partners in the joint venture are GE Vernova, a provider of renewable energy equipment and services, and TIC – The Industrial Co., a subsidiary of construction and engineering company Kiewit.

“The growing demand for electricity in part due to GenAI and the buildup of data centers means we need to form new, innovative partnerships to quickly increase America’s dispatchable generation,” Robert Gaudette, head of NRG Business and Wholesale Operations, said in a news release. “Working together, these three industry leaders are committed to executing with speed and excellence to meet our customers’ generation needs.”

Initially, the joint venture will work on four projects supplying 5 gigawatts of power from combined-cycle power plants, which uses a combination of natural gas and steam turbines that produce additional electricity from natural gas waste. Electricity from these projects will be produced for power grids operated by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and PJM Interconnection. The projects are scheduled to come online from 2029 through 2032.

The joint venture says the model it’s developing for these four projects is “replicable and scalable,” with the potential for expansion across the U.S.

The company is also developing a new 721-megawatt natural gas combined-cycle unit at its Cedar Bayou plant in Baytown, Texas. Read more here.

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