As Central and South Texas see ice, sleet and freezes for the second time in a week, climate change skeptics have taken to Twitter to express their disbelief: Y’all know how I know #GlobalWarming (aka #ClimateChange) isn’t real!? In Texas, we’re getting snow & ice w/ in hours of 80 degree weather. — Ydur (@YdurZatara) […]
Pie. Planes. Political arguments at the family table. It all takes energy – but how much exactly? As the busiest travel days of the year intersect with back-to-back days of excess consumption and consumerism, it’s a good time to take a step back and assess the energy impact of Thanksgiving. Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at […]
A new study of natural gas drilling sites out today offers mixed results on methane leakage during the drilling and production process, one issue in an ongoing debate over the safety and risks involved with a new surge in domestic drilling. Since domestic drilling for oil and natural gas has taken off with the help of […]
It would be easy to mistake the small, translucent, object in Kyle Knust’s hand as just another cheap piece of plastic. With dozens more scattered around his section of a buzzing graduate assistant’s lab at the University of Texas, the thumbnail-sized chips don’t appear to be worth much. And that’s because they’re not. At 50 […]
Back in the seventies and eighties, algae, a biofuel, was viewed as a possible path to energy independence. Federal money flowed to research, and science made some progress understanding how the stuff could be used.  Then, the money stopped flowing. For about 20 years. Now that researchers are taking another look at algae, they’re also […]
It seems like everyone’s talking pond scum these days. This year, people ranging from the President of the United States to this humble reporter, have spoken of algae’s potential in creating a carbon neutral biofuel. A recent study from the University of Texas showed how the tiny organisms could create 500 times more energy than […]
One University of Texas at Austin professor has retired and another has resigned his position as head of UT’s Energy Institute, the school announced Thursday after the release of a scathing review of a study on fracking that has become mired in controversy. The man at the center of the storm for sitting on the […]
StateImpact seeks to inform and engage local communities with broadcast and online news focused on how state government decisions affect your lives.
Learn More »