seeing green

Houston team researching how algae can combat climate change

Venkatesh Balan and his team at UH are researching ways fresh- and salt-water phototropic organisms, or microalge, can sequester carbon from industrial refineries and convert it into useful byproducts. Photo via UH.edu

Researchers at the University of Houston are looking at an alternative way to capture carbon that uses a surprising conduit: algae.

In a newly published article in Green Chemistry, a journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry, Venkatesh Balan, associate professor of engineering technology at UH, details how he and his team are researching ways fresh- and salt-water phototropic organisms, or microalgae, can sequester carbon from industrial refineries and convert it into useful byproducts.

Balan is joined by UH researchers James Pierson and Hasan Husain, Sandeep Kimar from Old Dominion University, Christopher Saffron of Michigan State University, and Vinod Kumar from Cranfield University in the United Kingdom.

According to a release from UH, Balan and research assistant Masha Alian have uncovered how microalgae can produce fungus like lichen and create healthy food products. After microalge captures the carbon, it then converts that CO2 into mass-produced proteins, lipids and carbohydrates, according to the team's research.

“We are coming up with the alternate approach of using algae to fix the CO2 then using the carbon to make bioproducts that are useful to mankind,” Balan said in the release.

The method offers an alternative to other carbon capture options that aim to burry carbon, which is expensive and energy intensive, according to UH.

Balan says this research also has applications in wastewater treatment and the production of food, fertilizers, fuels and chemicals, all of which could lessen the dependency on fossil fuels in the future.

"On your table or in your pantry, you see food products. What’s harder to visualize are the greenhouse gasses emitted by the orchard that grows the fruit, the factory that makes the breakfast cereal, the transportation that brings the cookies to your neighborhood, even your own commute to buy the food," Balan said. "It adds up, but the problem is easy to ignore because we can’t see it. Yet all consumers contribute, in our own way, to the greenhouse effect.”

The UH team is just one of many Houston groups looking at unconventional, although natural ways to combat climate change.

In September, Rice University announced that two researchers were awarded a three-year grant from the Department of Energy for their research into the processes that allow soil to store roughly three times as much carbon as organic matter compared to Earth's atmosphere.

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A View From HETI

Nightpeak Energy's Bocanova Power project in Brazoria County has reached commercial operation. Photo courtesy Nightpeak Energy.

Oakland, California-based Nightpeak Energy announced earlier this month that its 150-megawatt battery storage project in Brazoria County, known as Bocanova Power, is now operating to address Houston’s peak capacity needs.

“This battery storage project will enhance grid reliability in the Alvin area while continuing to support integrating renewable energy,” Cary Perrin, president and CEO of the Northern Brazoria County Chamber of Commerce, said in a news release. “I believe we need energy storage now more than ever for its pivotal role in reducing strain on the grid while meeting fast-growing power demand in Texas and Brazoria County."

The project reached commercial operation in August, according to the release. The project utilizes Tesla's Megapack 2 XL battery storage system, and the facility operates under a long-term power purchase agreement with an undisclosed “investment-grade power purchaser.”

“Bocanova Power demonstrates the speed at which Nightpeak Energy is overcoming complex challenges to energize projects that support America's growing need for affordable, reliable, and secure energy,” Paris Hays, co-founder and CEO/CDO of Nightpeak Energy, added in the news release. “Unprecedented AI data center and manufacturing growth has only accelerated the need for these resources.”

Hays added in the release that the company has plans for more energy infrastructure projects in Texas and in the Western U.S.

Nightpeak Energy develops, owns and operates power plants that support the growing capacity needs of a decarbonized grid. It also owns and operates 240 MW of battery storage and natural gas generation facilities.

The company was founded in 2022 and backed by equity funding of up to $200 million from Dallas-based investment firm Energy Spectrum Capital.

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