James Dolphin
Overview
James “Jim” Dolphin is a partner in the Houston office of Kirkland & Ellis LLP working in the Environmental Transactions Practice Group. Jim manages environmental matters for private equity and industry clients involved in complex transactions concerning the acquisition and divestiture of large businesses and companies, and project development, including negotiating contractual language, counselling clients regarding regulatory compliance and exposure to environmental liabilities and advising on environmental insurance.
Jim has significant experience advising clients on the environmental aspects of energy-focused transactions and projects, including energy transition projects involving carbon capture, utilization and sequestration, solar, energy storage, wind, geothermal, energy efficiency and environmental credits, attributes and offsets.
Experience
Representative Matters
ArcLight Capital Partners in its acquisition of Duke Energy’s commercial distributed generation business, including a portfolio of solar operating and development assets, an O&M portfolio, and distributed fuel cell projects managed by Bloom Energy
TPG Rise Climate in its $250 million investment in Ohmium International, a developer and manufacturer of hydrogen electrolyzers
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in its $805 million convertible equity portfolio financing of a large portfolio of renewables assets owned by NextEra Energy Partners, LP (NYSE: NEP)
TPG Rise Climate, The Rise Fund and Decarbonization Partners in their $250 million investment in Monolith Materials, a producer of hydrogen and carbon black using a commercial-scale methane pyrolysis process, in connection with a $300 million capital raise by Monolith
TPG Rise Climate, a global impact investing platform managed by TPG Global, on its 1/3 equity investment in Monarch Bioenergy, a joint venture between Roeslein Alternative Energy and Smithfield Foods that is a leader in capturing agricultural methane emissions and converting them into carbon-negative renewable natural gas
TPG Rise Climate in its approximately $550 million investment in a $750 million capital raise by Intersect Power, LLC, a developer of solar, energy storage, hydrogen, wind and other renewable power generation projects
Kimmeridge in its $200 million investment in Chestnut Carbon LLC, a nature-based carbon offset platform
CleanCapital in its acquisition of BQ Energy, a Hudson Valley-based developer of solar projects on landfill and brownfield sites with more than 60 projects spanning 16 states
TPG Rise Climate in its $300 million investment in a $1 billion capital raise by Summit Carbon Solutions, a developer of a large-scale carbon capture and storage project that will capture and store up to 20 million tons per year of CO2 from facilities in the Midwest US
Gates Frontier in connection with its additional investment in TerraPower, a leading nuclear innovation company, in its $750 million fundraising round co-led by Gates Frontier and SK Inc. and SK Innovation
TPG Rise Climate in its investment in a $375 million capital raise by BETA Technologies, a developer and manufacturer of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft for the cargo and logistics industry, and related EV charging infrastructure
Carlyle Renewable and Sustainable Energy Fund in its investments in CertainSolar, an owner of fuel cell and related assets, and NineDot Energy, a CertainSolar affiliate that develops and owns battery storage projects
TPG Rise Climate in its investment in a $170 million capital raise by UBQ Materials Ltd., an Israeli-headquartered company that converts household and municipal waste to sustainable bio-based thermoplastic
TPG Rise, a global impact investing platform managed by TPG Global, and Element Markets, a leading renewable natural gas marketing and environmental commodities company, on the acquisition of Bluesource, the largest carbon credit developer in North America
Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in two related transactions involving a 2,520 megawatt renewable energy portfolio operated by NextEra consisting of 13 US based utility-scale wind and solar assets, three of which include battery storage
Peridot Acquisition Corp. in its $1.67 billion combination agreement with Li-Cycle Corp.
Magnetar Capital’s Energy & Infrastructure group in a $100 million preferred equity investment round in PosiGen, a renewable energy solutions provider
The Rise Fund, a TPG-managed global impact fund, in its acquisition of Element Markets, the leading independent marketer of renewable natural gas and environmental commodities in North America
Rice Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company, in its $1.15 billion business combination with Aria Energy LLC and Archaea Energy LLC to form Archaea Energy, a publicly-traded renewable natural gas platform
Cypress Creek Renewables on a mezzanine debt financing backed by a 1.6 GW portfolio of operating solar projects, and on a senior financing of a portfolio of 14 operating solar projects
Grön Fuels, a Fidelis New Energy subsidiary, in its development of a low carbon fuels project in Louisiana
Lenders in connection with the $3.4 billion Train 3 Refinancing for Freeport LNG
Revolution II WI Holding Company, LLC, an affiliateof Mountain Capital Partners, LP, in its approximately $201.5 million acquisition of Jones Energy II, Inc. in an all-cash transaction
Murray Energy Holdings Co. and certain of its subsidiaries in their Chapter 11 cases in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Ohio. Murray is the largest privately-owned coal company in the United States, headquartered in St. Clairsville, Ohio, and has operations primarily in Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, Illinois, Utah, and Colombia, South America. Murray employs nearly 5,500 people, including approximately 2,400 active union members. Murray entered Chapter 11 with approximately $2.7 billion in prepetition funded debt and more than $8 billion in actual or potential pension and employee benefit obligations
Lenders in the approximately $1.27 billion refinancing for Train 2 of the Freeport LNG facility
Lenders in the financing of Guernsey Power Project
Prior Experience
Associate, Andrews Kurth Kenyon LLP, 2015–2017
Law Clerk, Turner Environmental Law Clinic, 2012
More
Thought Leadership
Publications
Co-Author, “Oil, Gas and the Transition to Renewables 2024,” Chambers and Partners, USA, 2024
Recognition
Recognized as Up and Coming in Chambers USA for Environment: Mainly Transactional (Texas), 2024
Recognized as a Next Generation Partner in The Legal 500 U.S. for Environment: Transactional, 2024
Best Lawyers, Ones to Watch, 2023–2024
Recognized as a Key Lawyer in The Legal 500 U.S. for Environment: Transactional, 2022–2023
Credentials
Admissions & Qualifications
- Texas
Languages
- English
- French
Education
- Emory University School of LawJ.D.with Honors2015
- Elon UniversityB.A., International Studies & Political Sciencecum laude2012