Seeing as how the Texas climate these days is predisposed to extremes, the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas passed a rule change last week they hope will prevent another epic, frozen February blackout or a grid driven to the brink by gawd-awful Texas…
A major credit-rating agency is expressing grave doubts about the ability of the state’s largest nonregulated power generator to pay off its debt. Energy Future Holdings, the Dallas-based parent company of power generator Luminant, transmission company Oncor and retail electricity provider TXU Energy, has been downgraded to a CC rating…
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a federal district court’s order forcing the American Cancer Society to return some $240,000 donated by Irving-based Giant Operating, an oil and gas company the Security and Exchange Commission says defrauded investors of more than $13 million. The ACS donations were…
Dr. Michael Economides, author, CNBC regular and University of Houston professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering, says Texas lost out on some $7.7 billion between 2005 and 2011 primarily because we didn’t use natural gas for electricity. Economides, it should be noted, is a vocal industry supporter and testified before…
Speaking of urban drilling and gas releases in populated areas like Mansfield, the Government Accountability Office says the gathering pipelines used to collect natural gas from drill sites are unregulated, and their locations are often unknown. The GAO conducted site visits in, among other places, the Dallas-Fort Worth area. The…
It was clear when A&M’s livestock economist said the drought had an agricultural toll of $5.2 billion back in August — which didn’t even really mark the nadir of the heatwave — that we hadn’t seen the worst this drought could do. Now we know: $7.62 billion in agricultural losses…
Less than a month since an unarmed, black teen — with no criminal record and every right to be in a gated Florida neighborhood — was shot to death by some repeat 911 dialer and crime watch volunteer named George Zimmerman, we’ve been collectively stunned by the fact that the…
America is in a pissy, irascible, throw-the-bums-out, anti-incumbent kinda mood. Even, apparently, if it means unseating a longtime congressman with some serious seniority and a choice committee chair. According to Charlie Cook over at the National Journal, there are some 22 House Republican primaries to watch this year. Rep. Ralph…
By 2008, the high price of natural gas, coupled with the novel combination of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling, touched off a modern-day gold rush in the Barnett Shale. Regulators were caught on their heels. “They moved forward very rapidly, and state regulatory programs had a difficult time catching up,”…
Some 10 years ago, commodities and energy company Enron led a successful lobbying effort to deregulate Texas electricity markets. A free-market, we were told, would foster competition, keep power prices low and improve customer service. Yet over the last decade, none of these promises have been kept. That’s the subject…
Who’s judging the guys who judge the judges? Well, nobody, really. That’s because the legislative agency charged with evaluating other state agencies’ functionality and raison d’être, the Sunset Advisory Commission, got shut out of their meetings and denied access to confidential documents. Now, it’s easy to understand the juggling act…
The Texas Public Utility Commission is finally spitballing dollar figures for just how high they’re willing to let wholesale electricity prices spiral when weather extremes send us to our thermostats. For the moment, we’re sitting at $3,000 per megawatt-hour. To keep the lights from going out (ERCOT predicts demand will…
State legislation requiring voters to present state-issued identification such as a driver’s license, a concealed-carry permit, or a U.S. passport or military ID was rejected Monday morning by the U.S. Department of Justice. “Because we conclude that the state has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that the proposed…
NASA was perturbed when Apollo 13 astronaut Jim Lovell auctioned his checklist from the ill-fated mission through Dallas-based Heritage Auctions back in December. So perturbed, in fact, that NASA general counsel asked the auctioneer to halt the nearly $400,000 sale so that proof of ownership could be determined. The checklist,…
At around 9:05 Wednesday night, Dallas police say, Luis Escalante, 23, and Carlos Cipriano, 37, approached a customer in front of Smoke For Less in the 2900 block of Esters Boulevard in northwest Irving, brandished a weapon — possibly a pellet gun — and made off with a vehicle equipped…
A senator from New Mexico has proposed a bill that could change the face of Texas electric generation. And it has another interesting side-effect: It could reinvigorate a shale gas play depressed by tanking prices. U.S. Senator Jeff Bingaman, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, envisions a…
On February 2, 2011, the lights in the operating rooms of Dallas’ chief trauma center flickered briefly as diesel generators began to drone. Elective surgeries — even emergency transfers from other hospitals — were halted until further notice. All nonessential operations went dark. The walk-in clinics, even certain hallways, were…
Texas’s pasture-desiccating, road-warping devil heat last summer has earned a spot alongside hot spells in Moscow (2010) and France (2003) as one of the wild outliers of a climate pushed to extremes. A study from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Columbia Earth Institute say global warming…
A company that supplies electricity to Texans called American Electric Power filed to renew its application to export electricity to Mexico with the U.S. Department of Energy back in December. It operates a 720-megawatt coal-fired power plant near Vernon, and apparently it has been supplying our southern neighbor with electricity…
Is the United States the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas,” as President Barack Obama has said? Or has the energy industry used fuzzy math to hype its estimated reserves to entice buyouts and Wall Street investment? Tough to say for sure, but last month the U.S. Energy Information Administration scaled…
It’s been more than three months since Seth Winder lost his tenuous grip on sanity in a Denton County courtroom, forcing Judge Bruce McFarling to declare a mistrial even as the prosecution prepared to wrap its case. Winder, a 32-year-old homeless man from The Colony, is accused of murdering and…
Texas is in a tight spot. Electric supply simply isn’t keeping up with consumer demand in a state bursting at the seams. By 2013, grid operator ERCOT predicts we won’t have enough to cover peak demand, when we’re all sweating and dashing for our thermostats. Summer 2012, on the other…
