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The latest energy news from The Texas Tribune.

  • Flipping the Switch

    By Mose Buchele, KUT News

    The Public Utility Commission is poised to pass new rules that could prohibit some Texans from switching from one electric company to another. But as Mose Buchele of KUT News reports, advocates for the elderly and infirm are concerned about the impact of the proposal on some of the state's most vulnerable ratepayers. Full Story 

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  • Green Horns

    By Kate Galbraith

    When Longhorn football kicks off at home this month, so will a brand-new marketing effort urging boosters to buy, of all things, green electricity. Colt McCoy's family has already signed up with Texas Longhorns Energy, which promises customers 100 percent power from Texas wind. The Aggies will roll out a similar deal on Friday. The programs are another sign of the universities' branding heft — even though they may not be the best deal within the confusing Texas electricity market. Full Story 

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    Credit: Graphic by UT Austin

  • Coal Hard Facts

    By Matt Largey, KUT News

    The Environmental Protection Agency is considering new regulations for coal ash — the waste left over from coal-fired power plants. As Matt Largey of KUT News reports, those new rules could have a big impact in Texas, the nation’s number one coal consumer. Full Story 

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  • Laura Miller: The TT Interview

    By Emily Ramshaw

    The former Dallas mayor on her new life as an energy policy nerd, leaving journalism for the "dark side" of elective office, her continuing frustration over the Trinity River Project and her (lack of) political aspirations. Full Story 

    Former Dallas Mayor Laura Miller
    Credit: Emily Ramshaw

  • Hola, Amigas

    By Kate Galbraith

    Texas has always operated its own electricity grid, separate from the two other grids that span the rest of the nation. But a project quietly emerging in eastern New Mexico could curb that independence — and affect energy prices here in ways that remain much in dispute. Full Story 

    There are three electric grids in the continental United States. A project in New Mexico called Tres Amigas plans to interlink all three.
    Credit: Graphic by Tres Amigas

  • Oil's Well That Ends Well

    By Matt Largey, KUT News

    Halfway through a controversial six-month hold on deep water oil drilling, Matt Largey of KUT News reports, energy sector jobs in Texas appear relatively unaffected. Full Story 

    Response boats work to clean up oil where the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig sank on April 22, 2010.
    Credit: United States Coast Guard

  • The Not-So-Great Outdoors

    By Allen Reed

    Three years after voters approved bonds for fixes at state parks, not all of the money has been spent — despite facilities that haven't been upgraded since the 1930s and recent hurricane damage that hasn't been repaired. Full Story 

    USS Battleship Texas and the San Jacinto monument
    Credit: Louis Vest

  • The Other BP Catastrophe

    By Morgan Smith

    BP's problem-plagued Texas City refinery — where a 2005 explosion killed 15 and injured 170 — now faces two civil lawsuits stemming from its release this spring of more than 500,000 pounds of cancer-causing pollutants over 40 days. One suit seeks $10 billion on behalf of 2,000 exposed workers; the other, filed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, seeks more than $1 million in fines. Both aim to punish the company for one of the largest chemical emissions events the state has ever seen. Full Story 

    The BP refinery in Texas City
    Credit: Callie Richmond

  • The Heat of the Moment

    By Peter Babb

    It's late August in Texas, which means triple-digit temperatures and air conditioners everywhere cranked to the max. No wonder that, on Monday, the state set an energy consumption record — for the second day in a row. Peter Babb of KUT News has this report. Full Story 

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  • Dust to Dust?

    By Kate Galbraith

    Texas has the most acres of any state enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program, which seeks to prevent another Dust Bowl by paying farmers to plant grass instead of crops. But the program has fallen on hard times, and its participants worry they will, too. Full Story 

    Lynn County Judge H.G. Franklin looks out over his land, which is enrolled in the federal Conservation Reserve Program.
    Credit: Kate Galbraith

  • The Pelican Grief

    By Elizabeth Titus

    At Goose Island, near Rockport, some of the nearly 200 pelicans rescued from the Gulf oil spill and sent to Texas seem to be thriving. But officials are holding their breath to see whether the rescued birds stick around or fly back to habitats that may still be contaminated. "Wildlife do crazy things," says the manager of the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge. "That's why they're called 'wild.'" But the ones that stay could face survival struggles, too, from coastal litter and competition with other species for food. Full Story 

    Twenty brown pelicans now call Texas home after getting "oiled" in the BP spill off Louisiana's coast
    Credit: Spencer Selvidge

  • Reservoir Dogged

    By Morgan Smith

    In 2004, two brothers thought they had found the perfect ecologically friendly business venture: create a wetlands preserve on 4,000 acres of neglected farmland along the Sulphur River in Northeast Texas and make a pile of money selling mitigation credits to developers who build over environmentally sensitive lands elsewhere. Seven years later, the only thing stopping them from realizing that dream is the state of Texas, which has plans to submerge their property under 80 feet of water. Full Story 

    The Hearts Bluff Mitigation Bank as pictured with the proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir.
    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman