Lorne Matalon is the Fronteras reporter based in Marfa, Texas at Marfa Public Radio. He began reporting from Latin America in 2007 where he was based in Mexico City for The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, Public Radio International and NPR member station WGBH, Boston.
Previously he was at NPR member stations WUNC, Chapel Hill, North Carolina and WBUR, Boston. During that time he filed for NPR from Haiti and Mongolia. Prior to working at WBUR, Lorne was a television reporter in Boston and before that at CBC Television where he reported from Canada, the U.S., Brazil and Cuba. Lorne is a contributor to National Geographic's online news service, where he has filed from Panama, Mongolia and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. His articles and photographs have appeared in the Boston Globe, the San Diego Union-Tribune, La Recherche (Paris) and The World Today (London) a publication of the international affairs organization Chatham House. He has produced several television documentaries, among them Brazil: Amazon War, Sudan: Freedom for Sale and Guantanamo.
The growing number of oil rigs pulled in from the oilfield and stored in this lot in Odessa, Texas is a testament to the steep decline in the price of crude oil in the last year.(Lorne Matalon)
Mexican venture capital is hovering over distressed energy companies in the Permian Basin of Texas, the nation’s highest-producing oilfield.
Those companies – including oil and gas drillers, and service companies – crafted budgets when the price of crude oil was 100 dollars per barrel. It’s now in the 50s. And those companies need capital that U.S. banks are sometimes reluctant to give in an oil downturn.
“This is a buyers’ market right now,” said Carlos Cantú, an investor from Juárez.
He’s one in a stream of Mexican venture capitalists wanting in on U.S. oil and gas. Right now, the smaller players in the energy industry—operating on thin margins—can collapse without new capital.
MARFA, Texas — Texas has been called an energy superpower. Fracking technology is allowing Texas producers to extract vast amounts of oil and natural that were once out of reach.
The state pumps more natural gas that any other. And it leads the country in wind energy. But Texas ranks eighth in solar power.
Three attempts by the state legislature to give incentives to solar have failed. The economics of solar in Texas stand in contrast to the rest of the Southwest. And a prominent Texas regulator says solar should not receive any government assistance to expand its footprint.
The United States Department of Energy says Texas represents 20 percent of the country’s potential solar output. So why is solar sluggish in Texas? Blame it on mix of policy choices and economics. Continue Reading →
A glow over the northern horizon at McDonald Observatory near Ft. Davis,Texas. The light is generated by round-the-clock oil and gas operations in the Permian Basin.
FT. DAVIS, Texas — World-class observatories like Mount Wilsonnear Los Angeles and Palomar north of San Diego are cramped by the intrusion of urban light to once unspoiled night skies.
Facing the same problem in the 1970s, scientists at Kitt Peak National Observatory south of Tucson persuaded that city and others in Arizona to pass lighting ordinances.
Now, the McDonald Observatory in remote West Texas — home to the largest telescope in North America — is suddenly dealing with unwanted light. The Texas oil and gas boom is responsible. Cutting edge research could be at risk. But the observatory is trying to convince industry to retool using a relatively simple solution. Continue Reading →
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