A new study is making headlines this week for linking increased earthquake activity to wells used to dispose of wastewater from the drilling practice known as “fracking.” Today seismologists William Ellsworth and Stephen Horton (who published the study) are doing a live chat with the journal Science. You can read along (and chime in with […]

At a meeting of the Seismological Society of America today, scientists for the U.S. Geological Survey presented their much-anticipated findings linking the oil and gas industry with an increase in earthquakes in parts of the United States. (You can find NPR’s report on the findings here.) The abstract released this week, which is still the only publicly available […]

Cushing, Oklahoma is in an unlikely economic predicament: It has too much oil.

Americans will likely take their views on energy issues to the voting booth this November, according to a new national poll by The University of Texas.

The original version of this article, released on March 30, 2012, incorrectly attributed the following quote to an EPA press release: “In a press release today, the EPA stated that ‘multiple investigations into the claims showed no link between Range Resources’ operations and water contamination.’” The Texas Oil and Gas Association provided this quote in its […]

A few months ago we spoke with Cliff Frohlich, a seismologist and Associate Director of the University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics, about the connection between a recent string of earthquakes and hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.” In the interview, Dr. Frohlich told us that fracking can directly cause earthquakes, but only in very rare cases. “In the […]

Texas could be looking at spending hundreds of millions of dollars for road repairs to cope with the surge in drilling.

Accidents at drilling sites, new links between fracking and earthquakes, and a farewell party for La Niña (the main culprit behind the current Texas drought) were among our readers’ favorite stories over the last week. In case you missed them, here are the top five new StateImpact Texas stories: How Fracking, Drilling and Earthquakes are […]

New interim charges for the Texas Senate give us a sneak peak of what energy and environmental issues will be in the mix next year.

As drilling for oil and gas has surged in Texas, so have injuries and deaths. But there are promising efforts to reduce accidents.