Skip to main content
Topics

Environment

The latest environment news from The Texas Tribune.

  • ERCOT Ends Emergency Blackouts

    By Becca Aaronson

    Power out at your house? You've got good company — 400,000 other Texans, as of noon today. But as of this afternoon, the lights (and heat) should be coming back on. The demand for power exceeded generation capacity around midnight last night, causing more than 50 generators to shut down statewide Full Story 

    Article thumbnail
    Credit: Callie Richmond

  • A Conversation With Michael Williams

    By Evan Smith

    For our latest TribLive conversation, I sat down with the soon-to-be-ex railroad commissioner and declared 2012 U.S. Senate candidate to talk about why he's running, what he thinks of his potential primary opponents and how his campaign will or won't be impacted by his race. Full Story 

    Education Commissioner Michael Williams, a former railroad commissioner, is shown at a TribLive event on Jan. 27, 2011.

  • The Constant Gardeners

    By Kate Galbraith

    From the highways of Texas to the San Jacinto Battleground, state agencies now aim to maximize the use of native grasses rather than opting for whatever was cheapest or fastest-growing, as they did decades ago. Full Story 

    Bill Neiman, owner of Native American Seed, at his seed-cleaning facility in Junction, TX, Jan. 18, 2011.
    Credit: Callie Richmond

  • The Power Puzzle

    By Kate Galbraith

    When Texans turn on lights or plug in iPads, they are getting an increasing amount of power from the wind — and from coal plants. Last year, nearly 8 percent of the power on the state's electric grid was generated by wind, far above the national average. And coal plants produced more power than any other electricity source. The big loser was natural gas. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail
    Credit: Graphic by Todd Wiseman

  • Transmission Accomplished

    By Kate Galbraith

    At the heart of Texas' wind-power boom lies a conundrum: Plenty of ranchers are eager to host wind turbines but few want to allow the unsightly high-voltage transmission lines needed to carry the power to distant cities. But state regulators are moving forward — and yesterday they approved a contentious project that runs through the Hill Country. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail
    Credit: Callie Richmond

  • TribBlog: Smitherman Takes On the EPA

    By Kate Galbraith

    During a meeting today of the Public Utility Commission, chairman Barry Smitherman said that the Environmental Protection Agency was attempting to "disarm the U.S. economy," with a raft of rules covering everything from fly-ash waste from coal plants to new rules on greenhouse gases. Full Story 

    PUC Commissioner

  • EPA Presses On in Fight With Texas

    By Erika Aguilar, KUT News

    The Environmental Protection Agency took public comment in Dallas on Friday on its new rules for greenhouse gas regulations. Because Texas has refused to establish a greenhouse gas permitting process, the EPA will directly issue permits to companies here — but as Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, federal officials say there won’t be a delay for companies wanting to them. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail

  • Who Owns Our Water?

    By Erika Aguilar, KUT News

    Upping the stakes in a long-running debate over groundwater and property rights, state Sen. Troy Fraser, R-Horseshoe Bay, filed a bill this week that would give Texas landowners ownership of the groundwater beneath their property. As Erika Aguilar of KUT News reports, the filing comes as the Texas Supreme Court considers a similar issue. Full Story 

  • Permitting Paralysis?

    By Kate Galbraith

    The politics and rhetoric of the Environmental Protection Agency's multi-front battle with Texas make for a grand spectacle. Behind the scenes, however, there are signs that big industrial plants are trying to move past the stalemate on their own, talking with federal regulators and, in some cases, preparing to meet the demands of the agency. Full Story 

    Article thumbnail
    Credit: Illustration by Todd Wiseman

  • TribBlog: The Wind Blows Stronger

    By Kate Galbraith

    Electricity use on the Texas grid rose by 3.5 percent in 2010, and wind turbines generated 7.8 percent of the power, according to figures released today by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid operator. Full Story 

    New turbines tower over an old windmill at the Whirlwind wind farm, near Floydada
    Credit: Kate Galbraith

  • The Carbon Conundrum

    By Kate Galbraith

    In Texas, the largest oil producer in the United States, the demand for carbon dioxide is soaring, because it can help squeeze oil out of formations deep in the earth. That's why the idea of of capturing it and pumping it underground is gaining traction in the power sector. It sounds like an exercise in environmental idealism: Take the heat-trapping gas — belched prolifically from coal plants, which generate 45 percent of the nation’s electricity — and bury it, benefiting the atmosphere and combating global climate change. Of course, it is something of an environmental conundrum that stowing the greenhouse gas underground can also help to produce more fossil fuels. Full Story 

    A pump at an Alvin, Texas oilfield uses carbon dioxide, piped in from Mississippi, to help extract oil.
    Credit: Wenjing Zhang