Is it that time of year again already? Everybody's talking about pain at the pump.
There’s been lots of finger pointing over gasoline prices going up over the past few months. Some attribute the price jump to international instability, others say oil speculators are gaming the system. Republican presidential hopefuls, not surprisingly, are blaming the President.
But have we seen this before?
Today, an article in the Washington Post cites an emerging trend: each year when spring rolls around, the price at the pump escalates. The Post cites a couple of reasons: Continue Reading →
Keith Miller set a simple, yet challenging goal for himself a year ago: catch a fish every single day for the entire year. He did it to raise money to help the Junior Hunters and Anglers of America (and, of course, promote fishing) for kids and families. And despite having to endure sickness, drought and extreme weather, Miller achieved that goal on a foggy morning this weekend on the banks of the Brazos River in Waco.
Miller, an associate director of athletics at Baylor University, began his angling odyssey on April, 1 2011. This was the second time Miller completed such a pledge, but it wasn’t easy. He fought through strep throat, a hurt shoulder and twisted ankle, inclement weather and the rigors of a full-time job in order to succeed. And he only used artificial lures to catch the fish. Continue Reading →
Charles Upshaw is researching renewable energy and smart grid technology at the Mueller Development in Austin.
The Mueller subdivision, just northeast of downtown Austin, is recognized as a haven for green building standards, energy conservation and environmentally-sustainable development.
Smart appliance makers, sustainable home developers, renewable energy companies and green home builders are all using the Mueller development as a test ground for some of the most advanced home technologies in America.
StateImpact Texas recently sat down with Charles Upshaw, a mechanical engineering graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin and member of the Webber Energy Group. He’s working with the Mueller Development on residential smart grid applications for home energy management and analyzing energy consumption in homes to improve efficiency.
Q: Can you tell me about the solar energy that you are using there at the Mueller Development?
A: Pecan Street is the smart grid consortium here in Austin. It’s a collaboration between the University of Texas, the City of Austin, Austin Energy and a bunch of companies. In order to really test, and have a real world kind of experiment with high density residential solar, they have offered additional incentives to the [Mueller homeowners] on top of the Austin energy rebate and the federal rebate, so the people in Mueller have an opportunity to get solar really cheaply, less than a dollar a watt and so a lot of them have taken advantage of that… it’s around a megawatt of solar installed or going to be installed in the next few weeks or month.
Technology that can reduce the amount of water a power plant needs to create energy and cool down has never been more important. Ashlynn Stillwell, a civil and architectural engineering PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin with the Webber Energy Group, sat down to speak with us recently about her research into water use by power plants and how it will affect Texas’ water supply.
Q: Can you give us a brief description of how thermoelectric power plants use water?
A: So, thermoelectric power plants use some sort of fuel to create steam and then that steam turns a turbine. Usually, the water that is used is very high-purity, so we don’t want to lose that water. We want to condense it and recycle it and reuse it. The way that we condense it is to use some method of cooling. So, that is either using a river or a lake for cooling directly, or using cooling towers.
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