(HOUSTON) – The Greater Houston Partnership, through its Houston Energy Transition Initiative (HETI), and Argonne National Laboratory have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to leverage Houston’s top research institutions, energy and industrial leadership, infrastructure, and technical expertise to catalyze the development of commercial-scale solutions for the energy transition.
This partnership aims to enable greater collaboration across academia, local industry (existing and startup), private investors and government to accelerate the translation, evaluation and pre-commercialization of breakthrough carbon reduction technologies essential to achieving both climate and economic development goals. The MOU will enable Houston to capitalize on its nascent, but fast-growing, energy innovation ecosystem and stimulate place-based innovation and commercialization through the creation of a decarbonization center of excellence.
“The U.S. Department of Energy’s national laboratories have long been the backbone of research, development, and demonstration for the energy sector. The Partnership and HETI, working with our industry members, business community and top research and academic institutions, in collaboration with Argonne, will work across our energy innovation ecosystem to drive this critical effort for our region,” said Bobby Tudor, CEO of Artemis Energy Partners and Chair of HETI. “A decarbonization center of excellence in Houston is the missing link in the region’s coordinated approach to advancing critical energy transition technologies needed to mitigate the risks associated with climate change, while also promoting economic growth and job creation for the region.”
Achieving a net-zero emissions economy by 2050 will require carbon management at scale, both to abate greenhouse gas emissions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors and to remove carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere. Through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, the U.S. is making unprecedented investments in carbon management R&D to de-risk technologies needed in the short term, invent the technologies needed in the medium term, and discover the fundamental phenomena that will lead to transformative technologies in the long term.
“Partnerships are essential to realizing net zero goals,” said Argonne Director Paul Kearns. “We are pleased to extend DOE national laboratory expertise and work with HETI to focus the region’s considerable energy and industrial assets, infrastructure, and talent on broad commercial deployment of needed technologies.”
