An explosion occurred at a refinery in San Antonio earlier today, according to the city’s fire department and news reports. Firefighters battled a fire that began after an explosion this afternoon at the AGE Refinery. Local news station WOAI reports that “the San Antonio Fire Department has confirmed a type of diesel jet fuel is burning. Crews have been using an extinguisher system at the refinery to help put out the fire.” The station says that the fire “appeared to be out as of 1:15 pm, and that workers were evacuated from the building.”
UPDATE: StateImpact Texas spoke by phone with Deborah Foster, Public Information Officer with the San Antonio Fire Department. She says that “they had a large explosion that was called into dispatch [at the fire department] about 25 minutes ago. ” Foster says firefighters knocked down the fire fairly quickly, and that now “we have everything under control.” Right now firefighters at the refinery are continuing to spray water on the tanks “to make sure they’re cool,” she says, “but the fire is knocked down and there were no injuries.
An oil worker at the Big Hill oil reserve in Beaumont, Texas.
A milestone has been crossed in the production of energy in the country, according to a report today in the Wall Street Journal. Because of increased oil and gas drilling and production, the U.S. could end up exporting more fuels this year than it imported. Continue Reading →
County Sheriff Gary Painter stands next to a pump jack outside of Midland, Texas in 2008
Are you curious how many new wells went into the ground over the last year in Texas? How much oil and gas was taken out of it? New numbers from the Railroad Commission of Texas, which oversees drilling in the state, were released today:
More Permits, More Wells. The commission approved 1,771 drilling permits last month, compared to 1,515 last October. That includes “1,567 permits to drill new oil and gas wells, 57 to re-enter existing well bores, and 147 for re-completions,” according to a commission press release.
Oil Production is Up. The daily average for oil production in Texas was 1.01 million barrels a day for September. For the month, 30.33 million barrels of crude oil were produced, compared with 28.15 million barrels of crude the September before. Continue Reading →
A warning sign along the shore of the dried O.C. Fisher Lake this summer in San Angelo, Texas.
What was it like to be there for the first drought in Texas? Does the past have anything to tell us about our future? A new timeline of droughts and heat in Texas has some answers.
The list, put together by the Texas Water Resources Institute (TWRI), the state’s water research group at Texas A&M University, takes a thorough look at the history water in the state. It’s been a scarcity since the settlers arrived, and there’s some fascinating material on the early days of water rights, extreme temperatures and the development of our water infrastructure.
“We went and gathered a lot of information from different sources,” says TWRI Communications Manager Kathy Wythe, who created the timeline. Looking at the history, it’s clear that drought and extreme weather are nothing new to Texas. “There’s a lot of talk about the drought of the 1950s,” she says, “but we’ve periodically had them over the last hundred years.” Wythe finds it interesting that the droughts since the 50s have been a lot shorter, however. A severe drought in 2007 ended abruptly in 2008. Continue Reading →
In a large, two story home in a wooded subdivision near where for years the Texas oil industry has drilled for black gold, three women have gathered around the kitchen table.
Dave Fehling/StateImpact Texas
Karen Darcy (left) and Rebecca Kaiser
“No one could believe what was happening,” said Rebecca Kaiser, whose two young children played upstairs.
She’s talking about a day some ten months earlier when she and carloads of her fellow Montgomery County residents angrily left a meeting of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).
“It’ll be horrible,” Hoagland said of the project, which will inject toxic waste into old oil wells near her town of Conroe. She fears it’ll not only threaten the purity of the well water she drinks but fill the road out in front of her house with tanker trucks bringing the waste in from petrochemical plants outside Houston. Continue Reading →
The Enron Code of Ethics and Conduct of Business Affairs
This week marks the tenth anniversary of the Enron collapse. StateImpact Texas’ local radio partner KUHF is reporting a four-part series on the aftermath, and the Houston Chronicle is taking a look back as well.
But for your own little piece of Enron history, you can head to eBay. The Chronicle’s Dan McGraw found some gifts for the collector in your family. Here’s a shopping list:
You can read about Enron’s self-espoused “Vision and Values,” circa 1998 and 2000, in their Code of Ethics and Conduct of Business Affairs manuals. “Economic activities are better sorted out by markets than they are by governments,” the document says. The company also states that “our success is measured by the success of our customers.” There’s a “buy it now” option for $250. Continue Reading →
A snow-covered police car sits outside the Super Bowl in Dallas on February 4, 2011
It’s hard to believe after survivng the epic summer of 2011, but winter is here. Today saw the first hard freeze of the winter season in Central Texas, where the ground becomes frozen solid and plants die. And folks in Houston (freezing) and Dallas (also freezing) didn’t have it any easier this morning. While you may have just had your AC on last week, chances are you’ve fired your heater by now.
Whether temps are in the 100s or 20s in Texas, there are several things you can do to increase the energy efficiency of your home. There are big-ticket options like energy upgrades or smart thermostats, and some utlilities are encouraging customers to make small DIY improvements that can go a long way towards helping your home stay warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. Continue Reading →
Texas Asks Hunters for Help During Drought:Â The worst single-year drought in Texas history has left deer undernourished and, in some cases, dying in greater numbers than before. But could hunting them actually help?
Another Victim of the Drought, The A&M Student Bonfire: The University of Texas and Texas A&M met for what could be the final time in their historic rivalry. But with a burn ban in effect, a traditional Aggie bonfire went unlit.
A few years ago, when US natural gas production was kicking into high gear, gas promoters like T. Boone Pickens sold it as something close to a panacea. It was a plentiful source of energy that could create jobs at home. It could wean the US off of foreign oil. Perhaps most importantly, it was a “bridge fuel” — it could serve as a cleaner source of electricity while America’s renewable energy industry came into its own.
It’s hard to conceive just how fast the industry has grown since then. In 2010, the US surpassed Russia as the world leader in gas production on the strength of domestic shale reserves. Estimates show production more than doubling by 2020 to over 40 billion cubic feet of gas produced per day. This success can be viewed as a vindication of early gas investors. But abundant and cheap natural gas has also brought its own set of challenges.
The worst single-year drought in Texas history has left deer undernourished and, in some cases, dying in greater numbers than before. Many of the deer hunters are bringing home are skinnier than normal and the population of fawns surviving through the summer took a nosedive in many parts of the state.
Mose Buchele / StateImpact Texas
This deer may be hungier than usual in the drought.
At McBrides Gun’s in Austin, Thomas Hunt is looking for the perfect rifle to take his son Mathew out hunting. The appropriately-named Hunt has already bagged two deer this year. He says the impact of the drought was noticeable right away.
“The same deer that we saw last year has had bigger horns last year than they had this year,” he said. “I’ve had one that was a very large — probably 14 point — that was a 10 point this year. So we’ve seen that much reduction in the horn size.”
Allen Cain, deer program leader with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said the legacy of the drought could be with us for years. Continue Reading →
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