Skip to main content
Topics

Energy

The latest energy news from The Texas Tribune.

  • Get Smart

    By Kate Galbraith

    Thanks to a 2007 state law and federal stimulus grants, smart-grid projects are proliferating across Texas, allowing customers to monitor their electricity usage and control costs. Some utilities are saving money too. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    M. Smith's interview with the new chair of the Texas GOP, Philpott on Republicans and Tea Partiers living in harmony, Aguilar on Immigration and Customs Enforcement's not-yet-released strategic plan, Ramshaw's tragic tale of out-of-state kids in Texas treatment centers, Grissom on how budget cuts could impact juvenile justice, Stiles' awesome new population app, Galbraith on the decline of the Ogallala Aquifer, Hamilton's interview with the commissioner of higher education and the debut of Hu's new video debate series: The best of our best from June 14 to 19, 2010. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail
    Credit: Jacob Villanueva

  • Panhandling for Water

    By Kate Galbraith

    Within Texas, the Ogallala Aquifer accounts for about 40 percent of all water use, but its levels are declining sharply. In a dry growing season, the High Plains Water District recorded an average drop of 1.5 feet. Meanwhile, the 2007 state water plan projects that the Ogallala's volume will fall a staggering 52 percent between 2010 and 2060. Full Story 

    Windmill at Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge pumping water from the Ogallala Aquifer.
    Credit: panoramio.com

  • TribBlog: Texas v. the EPA, Round 2

    By Morgan Smith

    In the latest bout of the state's legal contretemps with the Environmental Protection Agency, Attorney General Greg Abbott announced today that Texas will challenge the federal agency's decision to disapprove its qualified facilities program. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail
    Credit: Bob Daemmrich

  • TribWeek: In Case You Missed It

    By Evan Smith

    Ramshaw and the Houston Chronicle's Terri Langford on incidents of abuse and mistreatment at residential treatment centers, M. Smith on the state Republican Party platform and 10th Amendment embracers, Galbraith on a pipeline project raising crude concerns and the most important word in water law, Ramsey on former officeholders who are now lobbyists and the possibility of a speaker's race, Grissom on a fight over solar power in Marfa, Hamilton and Aguilar on the TxDOT audit, Philpott on budget cuts affecting school districts and my conversation with Dallas County D.A. Craig Watkins: The best of our best from June 7-11, 2010. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail
    Credit: Graphic by Jacob Villanueva

  • Crude Concerns

    By Kate Galbraith

    In the wake of the Gulf spill, anxiety is building about a proposed pipeline that would run through East Texas, ferrying Canadian oil to Port Arthur and Houston for refining. Full Story 

    Pipe sections in Illinois await crews to weld and bury them during construction in 2009. This segment of the $12 billion Keystone pipeline project has already been built; a proposed pipeline through Texas still awaits government permits.
    Credit: Keystone Pipeline System

  • TribBlog: Waiting on the Water War

    By Julián Aguilar

    The city of Fort Stockton and Fort Stockton Holdings, the company owned by Clayton Williams Jr. and family, have agreed to postpone a hearing on the company's permit to pump trillions of gallons of water from the Edwards-Trinity Aquifer. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail

  • Solar Opposites

    By Brandi Grissom

    In the West Texas outpost of Marfa, Malinda Beeman is waging war. Her target: a company that plans to erect at least 1,000 three-story mirrored satellite dishes designed to harness energy from the blisteringly bright desert sun. Full Story 

    Malinda Beeman displays a map of the area where Tessera Solar plans to install 1,080 solar discs here to generate power for the city of San Antonio.
    Credit: Brandi Grissom

  • Navigating "Navigable"

    By Kate Galbraith

    Congress is known for having arcane battles, but the biggest fight these days in water law is over a single word in a 1970s-era measure designed to reduce pollution in America's waterways. Texas environmentalists and ranchers are anxiously awaiting the outcome. Full Story 

    Collapsed bridge structure on the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River viewed from U.S. Route 83 at Rath City, Texas.
    Credit: Wikipedia

  • The Pollution "Police"

    By Andrew Kreighbaum

    The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has nearly doubled its number of administrative enforcement actions against polluters in the last five years — yet critics charge the agency still levies penalties too small to act as a deterrent. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail

  • "Accidents Happen Sometimes"

    By Morgan Smith

    In the wake of the BP catastrophe, former Railroad Commissioner Barry Williamson is defending the federal Minerals Management Service, which he led during the Exxon Valdez spill. “Was there a failure of regulation? I don't know," he says. "There may not have been." Full Story 

    Elizabeth Birnbaum, who resigned on May 27, 2010, as director of the federal Mineral Management Service.
    Credit: Minerals Management Service