Terrence Henry reports on energy and the environment for StateImpact Texas. His radio, print and television work has appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, NPR, The Texas Tribune, The History Channel and other outlets.
He has previously worked at The Washington Post and The Atlantic. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University.
Rooftop solar panels can result in significant power savings for homes in Texas during the summer, according to new research from the Pecan Street Research Institute. And by doing so, it could help lessen the strain on the Texas electric grid.
The Pecan Street Research Institute is a collection of energy-efficient, innovative homes (many with solar panels and electric cars) in a smart grid research project. In this experiment the group looked at 50 homes in Austin that are part of its research network. On average, the solar systems reduced energy use from the grid by 58 percent. The savings were most notable for homes with west-facing systems, which produced nearly 50 percent more power during the hot summer afternoons than south-facing systems.
The state is currently debating how to provide enough power for a growing number of residents, especially when the grid can at times be stretched like during the summer. Pecan Street’s research may point to one option for dealing with the potential power crunch, at least on a small scale and with the proper incentives. “These findings suggest that rooftop solar systems can produce large summer peak reductions that benefit utilities and customers alike without requiring customers to change their behavior or sacrifice comfort,” Pecan Street CEO Brewster McCracken said in the report.
You might have heard that there was a national “Stand Down” yesterday – a day designated to create safety awareness at oil and gas sites in Texas and the rest of the country.
The Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration has been holding these throughout the year, calling on companies to have workers stop for part of the day and focus on safety and training to help reduce accidents in the oil and gas industry. Those accidents have been on the rise, with the number of fatalities more than doubling in the last four years and reaching their highest level in a decade.
“Too many workers are dying in the oil and gas drilling industry,” Dr. David Michaels said at the event in Houston. “Employers need to ensure that jobs are planned out, everyone has adequate training in all aspects of safety and workers need to be part of the planning.”
But chances are the “Stand Down” didn’t catch your eye. Instead you probably read the many headlines about a gas pipeline explosion in Ellis County.
Thursday morning, a construction crew at a Chevon natural gas pipeline just outside the small town of Milford was “performing excavation activities,” according to the company, when a 10-inch liquified gas pipeline was ruptured. The black smoke reached all the way to Dallas, some 50 miles away. Continue Reading →
Dried up mud from the lake bottom at Lake Arrowhead State Park near Wichita Falls, Texas, September 2013.
Even if Rains Return, Climate Change Still Puts Texas Water Supplies at Risk
After years of drought, the city of Wichita Falls in North Texas is going to Stage 4 water restrictions this week, which bans all outdoor watering: No car washes. No more city water for golf courses. And no watering your lawn, of course. Â It’s the first time the city has moved to this stage, declaring a “drought disaster.”
While a lack of rainfall is certainly to blame for the sorry state of reservoirs in the region, it isn’t the only culprit. Evaporation has also played a big part in making the drought so destructive.
Map by Texas Water Development Board
Reservoir levels across the Western half of Texas remain dangerously low.
A typical year in Wichita Falls will see around 28 days with temperatures of a hundred degrees or higher. In 2011, they had 100 days over 100 degrees.
“Think about that for a minute,” Rusell Schreiber, Public Works Director, said while announcing the new restrictions this week. “That’s over three months of temperatures over a hundred degrees. One-fourth of the entire year.”
All that heat leads to more evaporation in the large, shallow reservoirs of North and West Texas. And it’s not limited to that region. Last year, the Highland Lakes, reservoirs for the city of Austin, lost more water to evaporation than the entire city used from them over the whole year. Continue Reading →
Update: Â The Texas Parks and Wildlife approved new rules today to prevent the spread of Zebra Mussels that will have an impact on boaters and fishers in 17 North Texas counties. “Anglers and boaters leaving or approaching public water will be required to take all reasonable steps to drain all water from their vessel, including live wells, bilges, motors, and any other receptacles or water intake systems that resulted from contact with public water,” the department says. ”
As a result of this rule, live fish could not be transported in water that comes from the water body where they were caught, which could impact off-site tournament weigh-ins. Personally caught live bait could be used only in the water where it was caught.” The new rules apply to any public waters in the following counties:Â Collin, Cooke, Dallas, Denton, Fannin, Grayson, Hood, Jack, Kaufman, Montague, Palo Pinto, Parker, Rockwall, Stephens, Tarrant, Wise, and Young counties. The rules will go into effect either December 10, 2013.
Original story, September 12, 2013:
If you boat or fish around Dallas-Fort Worth, your lake trips next summer could take a little extra time: new rules that could help prevent the spread of invasive zebra mussels were released for public comment this week, and if approved, boaters in 17 counties in Northeast Texas would be affected.
Zebra mussels have spread rapidly in the region after originally being discovered at Lake Texoma in 2009. Since then, they’ve been found in other lakes, like Lake Bridgeport joins Lake Texoma, Lake Ray Roberts, and Lewisville Lake. (You can what lakes have zebra mussels in the map above by Michael Marks.) Continue Reading →
How Texas counties voted on Prop 6. Counties in Blue passed the measure; Counties in Red voted against it. Map by Matt Wilson/StateImpact.
There wasn’t much nail-biting on either side of the Proposition 6 debate as people watched the votes come in on Tuesday. The measure, which will move $2 billion dollars from the state’s Rainy Day Fund to start a fund for water projects, won approval from over 73 percent of the state.
But as poll watchers began digging into the turnout, competing versions of what those numbers mean for the future of water in Texas began to take shape.
Speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, led the Water Texas PAC, which spent nearly two million dollars to promote the measure, pointed to the broad base of support to call the victory a triumph for bi-partisanship and coalition building.
“Small businesses, manufacturing, the energy industry, farmers and ranchers all came together very strongly,” said Straus at his PAC’s election night party.
Opponents of the measure say the way people voted points to a looming confrontation between water-rich rural areas and thirsty urban consumers. Continue Reading →
Speaker Joe Straus speaking on the passage of Prop 6 in Austin Tuesday evening.
Texans overwhelmingly passed a constitutional amendment Tuesday to jump-start financing for water projects in the state: Proposition 6. The plan will take $2 billion in surplus state money (from the Rainy Day Fund) to start a low-interest loan program for water projects in Texas. The measure had widespread support from both sides of the aisle as well as business and environmental groups. It passed with over 73 percent of the vote.
“I couldn’t be more proud of the members of the legislature who worked in a collaborative way on a very positive agenda for planning for our future water needs,” Speaker of the House Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, said at a rally celebrating the amendment’s passage Tuesday evening. “But the people of Texas today validated our good work with an overwhelming vote of support.” Some Libertarian and smaller environmental groups were vocally against the measure.
The creation of the water fund, overseen by the Texas Water Development Board, represents the first time in decades that the state has put significant money towards water infrastructure. The $2 billion approved this week will act like a down-payment on a mortgage that will allow the state to borrow billions more for hundreds of water projects outlined in its official Water Plan. Those projects aim to provide enough water to meet the state’s needs over the next fifty years. Continue Reading →
Voters in Texas will have the opportunity Tuesday to weigh in on a proposal to fund water projects in the state. There’s a lot involved that’s not in the ballot language, so we’ve put together an explainer on the amendment.
What is Prop 6 Exactly?
Proposition 6 is a constitutional amendment that would take $2 billion out of the state’s Rainy Day to create two accounts to help fund water projects in the state: the State Water Implementation Fund of Texas (SWIFT) and the State Water Implementation Revenue Fund of Texas (SWIRFT).
The initial $2 billion would be transferred from the Rainy Day fund to the SWIFT. Over time, revenue generated from SWIFT projects would be into the SWIRFT.
The SWIRFT money would then be used to fund even more projects. Together, backers argue, accounts could fund over $25 billion worth of projects over the next 50 years. Continue Reading →
The extreme drought and 2011 releases to farmers lowered levels in Lakes Buchanan and Travis (pictured) in Central Texas.
After a month of heavy rains and flooding culminating in the wettest October in history for Austin, many in Central Texas are likely wondering if the drought is over. Far from it: Austin’s reservoirs in the Highland Lakes are still very low, roughly only a third full, and could reach their lowest levels in history this winter. AÂ new proposal out today from the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) plans for the drought to possibly continue well into next year.
If the plan goes forward, it would likely cut off most rice farmers downstream for a third year in a row if the Highland Lakes don’t see significant rains this winter, increasing the amount of water in the lakes. Much of the precipitation this past month fell downstream of the lakes and did little to raise the levels of the two main reservoirs in Central Texas, Lakes Buchanan and Travis.
It’s the most restrictive proposal the authority has made since the drought began, designed to give the Highland Lakes time to recover from several years of dry weather and massive releases of water to agricultural customers in the summer of 2011. Continue Reading →
As several interest groups push for billions of dollars to finance water projects, the opposition is warning it could be another opportunity for cronyism.
How do you get Koch Industries, Chevron and Environment Texas all donating to the same political action committee (PAC)? That’s what’s happening here in Texas, with a diverse group pushing support for Proposition 6, a constitutional amendment that would use billions of dollars to jump-start financing for water projects in Texas.
To get Prop 6 passed, a PAC led by Texas Speaker of the House Joe Straus raised over $2 million to promote it, according to financial records analyzed by the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice. They found nearly a million dollars in contributions from the energy industry to the PAC (i.e. the state’s powerful oil and gas sector), nearly half a million from the construction industry (which stands to benefit from the potential projects funded through the plan), and a small donation ($500) from Environment Texas. There has also been vocal support from other environmental groups, like the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy.
Not surprisingly, many of the big donors to the Texas Water PAC are also big contributors to Texas Governor Rick Perry, Texans for Public Justice points out.
Strange bedfellows form the opposition to the idea as well, with its own unusual mix of smaller environmental groups and libertarians.Continue Reading →
The Public Utility Commission of Texas says concerns about smart meters are "unwarranted."
They’re in over 6 million Texas homes. But if you want to get rid of them, you’ll have to pony up. We’re talking about smart meters — advanced electricity meters that communicate wirelessly with the grid. They’ve spread rapidly across the state since 2005, when the state legislature passed a law to fund and encourage the distribution of smart meters. Now they’re in 97 percent of Texas homes in the deregulated electricity market, according to the Public Utility Commission of Texas. (In the non-competitive areas of the Texas market, Austin has smart meters installed throughout its area, while San Antonio is slowly expanding smart meters in the city.)
But after some Texans (notably, the Alex Jones/Infowars crowd) made their privacy and health concerns about smart meters vocal, the Public Utility Commission decided to give people a choice to stay out of the smart meter craze. “The customers who opt-out will have to pay the costs that will be incurred to be able to do that,” Public Utility Commissioner Ken Anderson told StateImpact Texas recently. “We also will be requiring those customers to acknowledge in writing that they understand they will be losing some benefits from not having the smart meters.”
Now that the rules have been figured out, some transmission companies are submitting proposals for how much they want to charge customers who opt out. It isn’t going to be cheap.  If you’re in the competitive market of Texas (most of the state other than Austin, San Antonio and El Paso) choosing to opt out means you can be subject to a one-time or recurring fee, or both, totaling hundreds of dollars. Continue Reading →
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