Two decades ago, the debate over a South Texas coal mine began. Today, Texas officials took a big step toward ending the debate and beginning to mine. The Railroad Commission of Texas approved a controversial permit today to allow Mexican company Dos Republicas to begin strip-mining coal near the Texas border town of Eagle Pass. […]
Updated with statements from Chase Power and the Environmental Integrity Project. After losing its air permit last summer, the Las Brisas coal power plant proposed for Corpus Christi has been suspended. The news was first reported in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. “Chase Power … has opted to suspend efforts to further permit the facility and […]
A plan to dig an open pit coal mine near Eagle Pass will go before the Texas Railroad Commission.
One of the few coal power plants still being planned in Texas is facing setbacks. The controversial White Stallion Energy Center in Matagorda County had been working with the Texas grid to examine how it will work once its completed, a process called a grid interconnection study. It’s a typical requirement for new power plants, along […]
Coal is on the decline in the United States. As a domestic drilling boom has opened up vast supplies of natural gas and coal has become more expensive to mine, coal power plants have become less and less viable. New environmental regulations that require coal plants to upgrade their equipment are also a factor. There […]
In what will be welcome news to environmental groups, on Tuesday the Texas grid gave the green light to Luminant to idle two units at their Monticello coal power plant and lignite mine in Northeast Texas for the winter. Earlier this fall, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which runs the grid, announced they would review […]
Last night’s presidential debate saw a lot of claims and assertions about energy and environmental policy, so we sat down to sift through what the candidates are saying. It may not surprise you that there were some questionable assertions from both sides. It’s worth noting that any policy, and energy policy in particular, doesn’t typically […]
As Texas moves away from coal and towards natural gas for its power plants, it stands to save billions of gallons of water in the process, according to a new study by the University of Texas at Austin’s Webber Energy Group. And in planning for the future, switching to gas will save even more. You can […]
In April, a video surfaced of Dr. Al Aremendariz, the regional director for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), speaking to a group of locals in Dish, Texas about how to enforce pollution rules. “It was kinda like how the Romans used to conquer those villages in the Mediterranean,” Armendariz told the group. “They’d go into a little Turkish […]
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 […]
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