the view from heti

New initiative to drive efforts to deploy first advanced small modular nuclear reactor

The International Energy Agency has determined that nuclear energy production would need to increase 80 percent globally by 2040 to stay on track with sustainability targets, including international climate goals. Photo via houston.org

A new initiative from X-energy, bolstered by Dow, is powering low-carbon emissions energy. X-energy, LLC is a nuclear reactor and fuel design engineering company. The company was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy in 2020 to receive up to $1.2 billion under the Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program Cooperative Agreement in federal cost-shared funding to develop, license, build, and demonstrate an operational advanced reactor and fuel fabrication facility within a 10-year span.

In 2022, X-energy announced a $50 million joint development agreement with multinational chemical giant Dow to demonstrate the first-grid advanced nuclear reactor at an industrial site. As part of the agreement, Dow is now a sub-awardee under X-energy’s ARDP with the DOE. At the time of the announcement, Dow also brought to light its intention to take a minority equity stake in X-energy.

Last month, the University of Texas at Austin Cockrell School of Engineering hosted a panel discussion with Governor Abbott, he noted “Texas is the energy capital of the world” Abbott said, “When you look at the fact that Texas is the fastest-growing state with regard to population and businesses, you know that our demand for power is only going to increase.” Abbott also said, “We’re going to be studying and evaluating the reliability, the safety of nuclear power. If it passes all the tests, we will be looking to dramatically expand nuclear power in the state of Texas for the primary purpose of providing reliable, dispatchable power to our grid.”

The International Energy Agency has determined that nuclear energy production would need to increase 80 percent globally by 2040 to stay on track with sustainability targets, including international climate goals.

Dow and X-energy are slated to install an Xe-100 high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor plant at one of Dow’s sites in Seadrift, between Corpus Christi and Houston, which produces more than 4 million pounds each year of materials used in packaging, footwear, wire and cable insulation and solar cell membranes. It also is expected to reduce the plant’s emissions by 440,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually, as steps by Michigan-based Dow toward achieving goals of carbon neutrality by 2050 and reducing carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2030.

Jim Fitterling, Dow chairman and CEO, noted in a press release issued in early March, “The utilization of X-energy’s fourth generation nuclear technology will enable Dow to take a major step in reducing our carbon emissions while delivering lower carbon footprint products to our customers and society,” he said. “The collaboration with X-energy and the DOE will serve as a leading example of how the industrial sector can safely, effectively and affordably decarbonize.”

X-energy will install four of its Xe-100 reactors at the coastal site with each unit designed to produce 80 megawatts of energy fueled by the company’s baseball-sized uranium fuel kernels, encased in layers of pyrolytic carbon, silicon carbide and porous carbon. The reactors will partly be constructed by Fort Worth-based Paragon Energy Solutions, LLC, a supply chain management company that focuses its efforts on tackling the nuclear industry’s most difficult challenges. The Xe-100 modular reactor is one of two designs selected by the DOE to receive $80 million each of initial cost-shared funding to build an advanced reactor demonstration plant that can be operational within seven years.

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This article originally ran on the Greater Houston Partnership's Houston Energy Transition Initiative blog. HETI exists to support Houston's future as an energy leader. For more information about the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, EnergyCapitalHTX's presenting sponsor, visit htxenergytransition.org.

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A View From HETI

Houston-based Mati Carbon won the global XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, funded by The Musk Foundation. Photo via LinkedIn.

Houston-based Mati Carbon has won the $50 million grand prize in the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, backed by Elon Musk’s charitable organization, The Musk Foundation.

Mati was selected in 2024 as one of 20 global finalists. The company removes carbon through its Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) program that works with agricultural farms in Africa and India.

The 3-year-old startup accelerates the natural process of rock weathering (ERW) by applying pulverized basalt to croplands of partnered smallholder farmers, free of charge. Mati says the farmers it partners with are some of the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

“Winning this XPRIZE competition is an incredible honor and a definitive validation of our research and development, and building out the infrastructure needed to impact millions of farmers while delivering verifiable carbon dioxide removal at a gigaton scale,” Mati Carbon Founder and CEO Shantanu Agarwal, said in a news release. “I couldn’t be prouder, not just of the Mati team, but of our collaborators, research partners and the thousands of smallholder farmers who let us be part of their lives. This XPRIZE recognition will allow us to collaborate with local partners to accelerate the use of enhanced rock weathering across the Global South.”

Mati reports that it plans to use the award to “scale its efforts working with smallholder farmers worldwide.” Apart from the XPRIZE funding, Mati plans to grow its model through the sale of CDR credits. According to the company, it counts Shopify, Stripe, and H&M among its early carbon credit buyers.

“Mati Carbon’s deployments bolster farmers’ livelihoods through improved soil health, reduced agricultural inputs, and increased income at zero cost to them. Mati Carbon’s team has developed a scientifically rigorous approach to monitoring and verification, and excelled across each of XPRIZE’s prize evaluation criteria – operational, sustainability, and cost metrics – giving the XPRIZE judges the highest confidence in Mati Carbon’s solution’s long-term scalability,” the XPRIZE judges wrote.

Houston-based Vaulted Deep took home the second-runner-up prize in the competition and $8 million for its organic waste storage process. The company provides permanent carbon storage by injecting nonhazardous organic waste deep underground. It spun off with $8 million in seed funding from Advantek Waste Management Services in 2023.

"Our approach is grounded in geomechanical injection techniques that have been safely deployed globally for decades by our team and predecessors," Omar Abou-Sayed, co-founder and executive chairman of Vaulted, said in a separate release. "XPRIZE recognized that this is a proven approach—already in use, delivering impact, and built on the kind of reliability the industry needs to scale responsibly."

Launched in 2021, the four-year XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition challenged global innovators to deploy scalable solutions for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and oceans. More than 1,300 teams from 88 countries competed. XPRIZE finalists were required to remove at least 1,000 tonnes of CO2 over a one-year demonstration period.

French company NetZero took home the first-runner-up prize of $15 million, and London-based UNDO came in as third-runner-up with a $5 million prize.

Since the announcement of the XPRIZE Carbon Removal competition, the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency has cut climate funding for agencies, projects and research. While the Musk Foundation sponsored the XPRIZE event, it is not affiliated with the California-based organization, according to the Associated Press.

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