Some Texas towns are welcoming the bars, strip clubs and “man camps” that come along with an oil boom. Not Karnes City, which is pumping its sudden wealth into schools, parks and a convention center, hoping to attract folks who will stick around when the oil is gone. This story and its audio slideshow are part of our Shale Life project.  

At our 11/6 TribLive conversation, Texas Railroad Commission Chairman Christi Craddick reacted to Denton's passage of a ban on fracking.

Full video of my 11/6 TribLive Conversation with Christi Craddick, chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission.

The newly cracked, chipped and crowded roads linking Texas boomtowns have meant more than just traffic jams for local commuters. They've also proved deadly. Each day, as thousands of 18-wheelers travel roads ill-prepared to handle them, drilling regions are seeing an increase in deadly accidents. This slideshow is part of our Shale Life project.

At our 10/31 symposium at the University of Texas at San Antonio on the impact of the shale boom on Texas, I talked economic transformation with Midland Mayor Jerry Morales, San Antonio Mayor Ivy Taylor, UTSA's Thomas Tunstall and Don Tymrak, the city manager of Karnes City.

At our 10/31 symposium on the impact of the shale boom on Texas, Jim Malewitz talked with state Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, and Texas Railroad Commissoner Barry Smitherman about what it will take to keep the boom booming.

The surge in Texas energy production has brought a new set of hazards to communities facing the bulk of the drilling — including an increase in traffic accidents and chemical spills. That means more work for already understaffed emergency response units across small-town Texas. This video is part of our Shale Life project. 

Visit Custom Touch Village, a workforce lodging facility, or “man camp,” that has popped up to accommodate West Texas' transient oilfield workers. These temporary neighborhoods are common in the regions touched by Texas’ shale boom, where housing is in short supply and hotels are stuffed to the gills. This audio slideshow is part of our Shale Life project. 

Full video of Jim Malewitz's 10/30 TribLive conversation with Steve Brown and Ryan Sitton, the Democratic and Republican nominees for Texas Railroad Commissioner, respectively, in 2014.

While many rural communities have eagerly welcomed Texas’ drilling boom, most of Glasscock County’s 1,251 residents would have been happier if the drillers had passed them by. This story is part of our Shale Life project.

The oil and gas industry almost singlehandedly lifted Texas from the country’s last recession. But such booms come with unsettling questions: How long will the bonanza last? And will an eventual drop in oil prices decimate local economies — as has happened throughout Texas’ history? This story is part of our Shale Life project. 

Hey, Texplainer: I heard that oil prices are plunging – down more than 20 percent since June. Texas boomtowns may not be panicking, but what does the drop mean for the state budget?

The Shale Life project, the culmination of six months of reporting on the people and communities behind Texas' energy boom, launches today. It's our first-ever project that's entirely visual — and also the first we've financed via crowdfunding. 

The legendary oilman reflects on plunging oil prices and the likelihood of another bust for Texas. Also, cranky folks in Denton and silly congressmen who don't understand how the energy industry works. 

Where there’s oil and natural gas, there’s money to be made and jobs to be found. But the challenges these dramatic booms present for communities across South and West Texas are immense. Use our 15-part multimedia series — the result of more than six months of reporting from the state's most active shale plays — to see how surging energy production is changing lives and fortunes across Texas. 

The state's drilling and fracking frenzy is raising questions about safety, earthquakes and water use. That's raising the stakes for this year's race for an open seat on the three-member Railroad Commission.

Texas regulators on Tuesday tightened rules for wells that dispose of oilfield waste, a response to the spate of earthquakes that have rattled North Texas.

A steep drop in crude oil prices threatens to slow drilling in some U.S. oilfields, but officials in Texas' hottest shale plays say they're not sweating things yet. The boom is still a boom, they say, and it's way too early to walk away.

UPDATED: After calling for an end to subsidies for wind energy production, the Texas comptroller has released a report studying Texas’ largest incentive for natural gas producers. The tax exemption for "high cost" gas has shaved more shaved more than $8 billion off operators’ tax bills since 2008.

Rejecting a bankruptcy monitor's objections, a Delaware federal district judge on Wednesday said Texas' largest power company can pay its executives up to $20 million in bonuses.

Texans in 2014 complained more about their electricity service than in the previous fiscal year, reversing a trend of growing satisfaction, according to a new analysis. Still, Texans are complaining far more than they did before the state deregulated its power market.

A coalition aiming to encourage commercial and industrial property owners to invest in energy and water efficiency says it has made major progress. The approach, known as Property Assessed Clean Energy, or PACE, addresses the biggest barrier to efficiency investments: initial costs that can take years to recoup.

The energy track at the 2014 Texas Tribune Festival featured panel discussions on the state of the electric grid, what Mexican energy reform means for Texas, hydraulic fracturing and a closer look at the state's drilling boom. Listen to audio of each session.

Nordheim, population 307, is the site of one of the first organized protests in the heart of the Eagle Ford. Many of its residents are fighting to keep out a massive disposal facility for oil and gas waste — a sight that could become more common as energy producers search for places to dispose of their leftovers.

Texas’ biggest solar panel manufacturing plant is ramping up production after becoming fully operational this summer. It’s part of San Antonio’s effort to become a solar energy hub – by building solar farms to help power the area and luring the companies that manufacture their parts.  

Texas regulators say they have a plan to provide low-income Texans with the tools to help them interact with "smart" meters and improve energy efficiency at their homes – tapping $18.5 million of ratepayer money long earmarked for such a program. The announcement came six weeks after the Tribune reported that the proposal had spent years in bureaucratic limbo.

In their efforts to regulate the wells that hold Texas' oilfield waste, state officials have found a surprising ally in the federal Environmental Protection Agency, long a political punching bag in Texas. Support for the plan, expressed in a letter this month, provides a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes collaboration between two agencies whose relationship often appears icy.