Learn more about the University of Houston’s outreach program and various events on energy and water management for Texas industries. This podcast is our newest endeavor to meaningfully engage with engineers, managers, and consultants working across the process industries.

The podcast is produced by UH Energy at the UH Media Lab with the support of the State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) in Austin, Texas. Every fortnight we look ahead to interesting industrial energy events in Houston or online, talk about interesting articles we have read and talks we’ve heard, and feature a new article on industrial energy efficiency. This is your biweekly 15-minute update on all things industrial energy.

 The podcast is hosted by Dr. Gary Gildert, with interns Carla Romero and Hisham Habli.

Episode 13: February 26, 2026

Upcoming events:

• Energy in Action Seminars - Artificial Intelligence in Energy Processes (February 27, 2026)
• TIEEP Pinch Analysis Workshop, and Water Forum (March 5-6, 2026)
• Energy Transition Webinar Series (March 10, 2026)

Past Events:

• Energy in Action Seminars - AI and the Net-Zero Journey with Shell (February 13, 2026)
• Energy Transition Institute Seminars - PACE Financing: A Scalable Tool for Energy and Water Efficiency, Resilience, and Economic Development February 10, 2026)

Gary and Carla discuss whether AI-powered energy systems can be trusted to manage industrial processes. Gary recounts his own plant operations experience to urge some caution, suggesting that it is better to use AI as a pattern recognition tool than giving it full control of a process. Next, Hisham previews his research into advanced plastic recycling, taking a closer look at the range of thermal and chemical decomposition methods and how they compare in terms of energy efficiency. Keep an eye out for his full write-up in the March newsletter.

Episode 12: February 17, 2026 

Interview with Dub Taylor

Gary talks about PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy) with Dub Taylor, the CEO of Texas PACE Authority. PACE is a financing program that's helping property owners finally move forward on energy and water efficiency projects for which traditional bank loans just don't work well. Dub walks Gary through how the program works, who it's for, and why the private capital behind it means no public dollars and no budget cycles, and how there’s a lot more flexibility. He also gets into some of the more surprising applications showing up on PACE's radar lately, including the infrastructure powering the data center boom here in Texas.

Episode 11: February 12, 2026 

Interview with Margaret Cook

Gary is joined by Margaret Cook of HARC (the Houston Advanced Research Center) to discuss her article "Thirsty Data and the Lone Star State." This article examines the impact of data center growth on Texas water supply. Margaret explains that while much attention focuses on the massive power demands of data centers, water consumption is an equally critical concern. Cooling systems, particularly water-based heat rejection technologies, consume enormous amounts of water through evaporation, which, in other words, is water that never returns to the local watershed. With new facilities reaching hundreds of megawatts, the scale of that consumption is staggering. Margaret highlighted a troublingly large planning gap: data centers don't provide water usage forecasts, so they aren't actually being factored into Texas's state water plan. This means that communities may unknowingly be giving away water intended for future residents. Some of her recommendations to fix this include greater industry transparency, public–private partnerships for water infrastructure investment, alternative water supplies like brackish water desalination, and offsetting water use within the same watershed to achieve net zero or even net negative water impact.

Episode 10: January 30, 2026 

Interview with Dr. Alan Rossiter

Gary sits down with Dr. Alan Rossiter, retired Executive Director at UH Energy, to discuss pinch analysis. Pinch analysis is a methodology for optimizing heat recovery in industrial chemical processes. Rather than relying entirely on external utilities like steam or cooling water, this analysis identifies how much heating and cooling can be handled through internal process heat exchange. Don't miss Dr. Rossiter's upcoming workshop on pinch analysis at the University of Houston Technology Bridge on March 5th!

Episode 9: January 15, 2026

Upcoming events: 

• Energy in Action Seminars - AI and the Net-Zero Journey with Shell (February 13, 2026) 
• Energy in Action Seminars - Artificial Intelligence in Energy Processes (February 27, 2026)
• Energy Transition Webinar Series (February 10, 2026) 

Past Events: 

• Energy Transition Webinar Series (January 27, 2026) 

Gary talks with interns Hisham and Carla to recap a visit to the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC) in The Woodlands, a "Living Lab" net zero building that tracks energy usage down to individual appliances and earned a 99/100 EPA Energy Star rating for seven consecutive years. Gary and Carla then dive into the second half of the hydrogen production article, this time focusing on electrolyzers instead of fossil fuels. Carla walks through the same two metrics used previously, which are first law energy efficiency and capital expenditure, applied to three electrolyzer types: alkaline, proton exchange membrane (PEM), and anion exchange membrane (AEM). Surprising to them, all three operate at similar efficiency, but differ in cost, durability, and compatibility with renewable energy sources.

Episode 8: January 15, 2026 

Upcoming events: 

• Energy in Action Seminars - AI and the Net-Zero Journey with Shell (February 13, 2026)
• Energy in Action Seminars - Artificial Intelligence in Energy Processes (February 27, 2026)
• Energy Transition Webinar Series (January 27, 2026 and February 10, 2026)

Past Events: 

• None, Happy Holidays!

Building from Episode 3 on October 30,2025, Gary and Hisham discuss an article Hisham and Carla wrote covering the energy conversion efficiency of hydrogen production from fossil fuels and their associated capital costs. Steam methane reforming, coal gasification and methane pyrolysis were assessed on those two metrics and they discussed whether these were good metrics to use when comparing these processes.

Episode 7: January 9, 2026

Interview

Our guest on the podcast is Dr. Michael Harold, professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering here at the University of Houston. His research focuses on catalytic reaction engineering where he gains tremendous understanding of various reaction systems and how catalytic reactions fundamentally work.

Gary and Mike discuss the challenges, opportunities and energy efficiency associated with electrified steam methane reforming. His research focused on coiled wire heating, like that of a toaster oven, to provide the energy for heat electrically as opposed to providing energy by burning fuels. By using this method, many benefits such as energy efficiency and conversion improved, which is promising research for the future of steam methane reforming.

Epsiode 6: December 18, 2025

Upcoming events:

• Energy Transition Webinar Series (TBD)      
• Energy in Action Seminar Series (Jan 26, 2026)

Past Events:

• Reuters Events: Energy LIVE (Dec 9–10, 2025)
• Energy in Action Seminar Series Beyond the Hype: Amplifying AI Impacts in Fuel and Petrochemical Industry (Dec 9, 2025)
• Energy Transition Webinar Series Unlocking Nature's Power for a Healthier, Safer, More Resilient Houston (Dec 2, 2025)
• Coogs for Energy Hackathon (Nov 21–-22, 2025)
• Energy In Action Seminar Series Google Cloud Talk: AI, Energy, and Data Centers (Nov 17, 2025)

Carla and Hisham speak with Gary about the article they wrote in December 2025 newsletter covering routes for Methanol Production and their Efficiencies. They discuss the traditional routes in comparison to the most novel route for producing the carbon monoxide needed as feedstock: CO2 reduction. This talk covers the basics of each process and the efficiency associated with each process that Carla and Hisham calculated.

Episode 5: November 20, 2025

Upcoming events:

• Coogs for Energy Hackathon at UH Student Center South (November 21–22, 2025)
• Energy Coalition Power Hour Social (December 4, 2025)

Past events:

• Energy in Action Seminar Series, “Beyond the Hype: Amplifying AI Impacts in Fuel and Petrochemical Industry” (November 17, 2025)
• Energy Transition Institute – Five energy efficiency related webinars this semester
• Texas Energy Summit (November 4–6, 2025)

Gary talks with Hisham about an article he wrote for the newsletter on the various pathways for hydrogen production and their energy efficiency. They talk about nine different colors denoting the different methods of producing hydrogen and compare their energy conversion efficiency. Hisham and Gary note that many novel methods lack consistent techno-economic and energy efficiency analysis. This requires further study for future articles and podcast episodes where we can compare costs, efficiency, and feasibility.

Episode 4: October 30, 2025

Upcoming events:

• Energy Coalition talk on Carbon Management Across Energy Sources (November 12, 2025)
• Energy in Action Seminar Series, “Beyond the Hype: Amplifying AI Impacts in Fuel and Petrochemical Industry” (November 17, 2025)
• Coogs for Energy Hackathon at UH Student Center South (November 21–22, 2025)

Past Events:

• Energy Day at Sam Houston Park (October 18, 2025)
• Future of Natural Gas Symposium at UH Student Center South (October 9, 2025) · SPE Annual Technical Conference (October 20–22, 2025)

Carla and Gary discuss the way in which many published studies emphasize technical performance but provide insufficient energy balances, cost breakdowns, and process integration assumptions, limiting their relevance to industrial deployment. Credible efficiency claims must include capex and opex estimates, realistic equipment lifetimes, scalability limits, and sensitivity analyses, and not solely rely on laboratory or simulation-based results.

Episode 3: October 23, 2025

Upcoming events:

• Coogs for Energy Hackathon at UH Student Center South (November 21–22, 2025)
• Energy Coalition talk on Carbon Management Across Energy Sources (November 12, 2025) · SPEER webinars (various dates)

Past events:

• Future of Natural Gas Symposium at UH Student Center South (October 9, 2025)
• 2025 Southwest Process Technology Conference (September 22–23, 2025) reviewing one of the two sessions on Industrial Energy Efficiency and the Water Conservation session.

Carla and Gary discuss a research article of how electrochemical methods showed promise over traditional high-temperature routes converting CO₂ into CO as a pathway to recycle carbon into fuels and chemicals. Catalyst durability and true efficiency still need to be validated at industrial scale.

Episode 2: Interview with Dr. Omar Abdelrahman

Interview

Dr. Omar Abdelrahman, professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering here at the University of Houston, is our guest on the podcast. His research focuses on thermal catalysis, electrochemistry, and photochemistry for chemical transformations.

Gary and Omar discuss electrochemical reactions used can make complex reactions, like turning CO₂ into fuels, more efficient. They also discuss programmable catalysis. By rapidly changing the energy at the catalyst surface, researchers can speed up reactions and adjust selectivity without redesigning reactors.

Episode 1: October 03, 2025

Upcoming events:

• Future of Natural Gas Symposium at UH Student Center South (October 9, 2025)
• Energy Day at Sam Houston Park (October 18, 2025).

Past events:

• 2025 Southwest Process Technology Conference (September 22–23, 2025) reviewing one of the two sessions on Industrial Energy Efficiency.

Gary talks with Hisham about an article he wrote for the newsletter on the growth in AI and data-heavy workloads. This is driving a sharp increase in data center energy use, especially for cooling. They discussed single-phase and two-phase liquid cooling systems, where chemical engineering plays a key role in improving efficiency.