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Energy and Environment Reporting for Texas

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Tracking the players in the ever-growing energy and environmental world.

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September 11, 2012

Working in the Mine: What Coal Means to East Texas

In East Texas, where unemployment rates in some counties are among the highest in the state, coal mining ranks as one of the biggest employers. In the war between Austin and Washington over the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to put stricter limits on air pollution, some people in communties like Fairfield and Jewett worry […]

September 7, 2012

How Hurricane Isaac Stirred Up Oil From the BP Spill

Tar balls and oil from the BP spill in 2010 are washing up again on the shores of Louisiana. Hurricane Issac, which stirred up intense winds and dumped over a foot of rain in some parts of the state, has also disturbed some deposits that hadn’t been cleaned up after spill. More than two years […]

September 5, 2012
August 28, 2012

Hurricane Isaac Shuts Down Oil Production in the Gulf

Nearly all of the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico have been evacuated because of Hurricane Isaac, according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). Of the 596 manned platforms in the Gulf, all but 93 have been evacuated as of mid-day today. 49 of the 76 rigs in the drilling area […]

August 24, 2012

Infographic: How Tar Sands Oil Gets Out of the Ground and Into a Pipeline

Construction is currently underway on the Keystone XL pipeline, which will take heavy oil harvested from sand and tar pits in Canada to refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas. The pipeline and the oil that will flow through it have drawn controversy for several reasons: it’s a carbon-intensive process to drill for the oil; […]

August 23, 2012

What Texas Can Do About Roads Damaged By Drilling

With the good can also come the bad, and that’s certainly been the case with the drilling boom going on in various parts of Texas these days. As drillers use thousands of trucks — hauling millions of gallons of water and other supplies to rigs — roads inevitably suffer. Naturally, people are questioning who is […]

August 22, 2012

Mystery Behind Sandy Creek Power Plant Begins to Unravel

What happened at the Sandy Creek power plant? The new coal-powered generator, one of the few developing coal projects in the state, had a strange malfunction last fall, setting back construction on the plant a year, and pushing the Texas electric grid even further into a tight spot. The power station in Riesel was set to […]

August 20, 2012

Now You Can See Houston’s Smog Levels in Real Time

If your daily jogging routine sometimes calls for a respirator, you’ll want to check this out: a new interactive map that shows you smog levels throughout the Houston area. The map, a joint project of the University of Houston, the American Lung Association, and the environmental group Air Alliance Houston, displays current smog levels from six monitoring stations […]

August 15, 2012

Review Panel Announced for Controversial Fracking Study

A few weeks back we reported that the lead author of an academic study on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” had been sitting on the board of a drilling company at the time, earning well over a million dollars in compensation. After the financial ties came to light, the University of Texas at Austin, whose Energy […]

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