Texas Clean Air Matters

Selected tag(s): Texas

What Does the Mercury and Air Toxics Standard Ruling Mean for Texas?

By / Bio / Published: July 6, 2015
Supreme Court of the United States

Supreme Court of the United States

The following introduction from Senior Health Scientist Elena Craft deals specifically with the implications of the Supreme Court’s recent Mercury and Air Toxics Standard Ruling on Texas. Below, an examination of the broader implications of the ruling follows.

“While this ruling does not mean current clean air protections will be revoked in Texas (or any other state), it does mean we will see another series of legal steps in the fight for clean air.

As one of the biggest contributors of emissions of mercury in the nation with over 40 coal-fired power plants, Texas facilities are now required to install pollution reducing controls to limit the amount of mercury, arsenic, and acid gases coming from electric generating units. But in truth, most of the plants in Texas and across the country have already installed or have plans to install pollution controls. Read More »

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Rustic or Dangerous? Why Keeping Treated Wood Materials Indoors Can be a Bad Idea

By / Published: July 1, 2015
Telephone poles, cross ties, and other wood materials can be treated with chemicals that are dangerous to keep indoors.

Telephone poles, cross ties, and other wood materials can be treated with chemicals that are dangerous to keep indoors.

The below is a guest post from Mike Honeycutt, Director of Toxicology at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Environmental Defense Fund appreciates the agency’s efforts to alert the public about a serious indoor air health issue.

At the Toxicology Division of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), we often receive phone calls from citizens with questions about various environmental concerns. Over the past few months, we received several calls asking if it is safe to use old wood materials inside homes, the most concerning of which came this past week from a realtor in the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. She had shown several homes recently that she suspected had used treated wood materials from telephone poles and cross ties as rustic accents. The realtor was concerned about using those materials inside where people could be exposed – and her intuition was spot-on. Read More »

Posted in Air Pollution, TCEQ / Also tagged | Comments are closed

New EPA Mapping Tool Sheds Light on Pollution Risk and Social Vulnerability

By / Bio / Published: June 12, 2015
EPA's new mapping and screening tool will help advance environmental justice.

EPA’s new mapping and screening tool will help advance environmental justice.

EPA is getting into the mapping game in a big way.

Just this week, they launched an environmental justice (EJ) mapping and screening tool called EJSCREEN, an online, publicly accessible index of environmental indicators based on location. It will be a tremendously helpful resource for the EJ movement.

In the past, concerned citizens, researchers, and advocates would access national databases individually without the ability to bring multiple sources of information together in one clear and consistent platform. EJSCREEN was created to address that issue. It’s a significant milestone that puts environmental and demographic data at your fingertips and empowers you to learn about your community. Read More »

Posted in Air Pollution, Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Uncategorized / Also tagged , , | Comments are closed

Fueling Cities with West Texas Wind as CREZ Comes Online

By / Bio / Published: November 25, 2013

MaritaHeadshot

This commentary originally appeared on EDF’s Energy Exchange blog.

As we approach the end of 2013, Texas’ power grid is soon to embark on a new clean energy path.  While most people don’t get too excited about electrical transmission and distribution lines, the much awaited Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) transmission project– set to come online in a few weeks and roll out through 2014 – could be the exception.

Approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) in 2008, CREZ is a 3,600 mile transmission line that will connect remote West Texas wind energy to the eastern cities that need its power – 18,500 megawatts of power to be exact.  This is enough power to energize 3.7 million to 7.4 million homes and increase available wind power supply by a whopping 50 percent.

Much like some other wind-rich regions in the country, wind in the West and Panhandle regions of Texas was partially unused, or curtailed, because local communities could not use all of the available supply  and the state’s current, outmoded electric grid could not efficiently deliver the abundant energy to high-demand eastern cities.   This ‘congestion’ bottleneck forced wind farms to lower prices and, at times, pay the utilities to take their electricity.  Read More »

Posted in Renewable Energy, Wind / Also tagged , | Comments are closed

Texas Boasts Most Modern Power Grid In The Country

By / Bio / Published: September 9, 2013

This commentary originally appeared on EDF’s Energy Exchange blog.

In an effort to gauge where America’s power grid stands, Washington D.C.-based group GridWise Alliance evaluated grid modernization in 41 states and the District of Columbia.  Texas and California tied for first place—standing far above the next runner up.

So what makes Texas’ grid so special?

Texas restructured its electricity market in 1999, introducing competition into the retail electric market.  The new competitive retail market gave most Texans a choice of electricity providers from dozens of companies, so these energy providers compete to offer the most advanced services.  For example, Texans can opt for 100% renewable electricity from Green Mountain Energy.

Additionally, in an effort to update Texas’ electric grid, the Public Utility Commission, Texas’ governing body for electricity, passed a resolution prompting “wires companies”(the firms that deliver energy from power plants to homes and businesses) to invest in millions of smart meters.  Smart meters can help eliminate huge waste in the energy system, reduce peak energy demand (rush hour on the electrical wires) and spur the adoption of clean, low-carbon energy resources, such as wind and solar power, by managing energy demand and generation more efficiently.

Read More »

Posted in Climate Change, Smart Grid, Solar, Utilities, Wind / Also tagged , , , , | Comments are closed

Local Energy-Water Solutions Should Be A Model For The Nation

By / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: September 5, 2013

This commentary originally appeared on EDF’s Energy Exchange blog.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve written a lot about the intimate and inextricable connection between energy and water. The energy-water nexus involves a number of technologies, environmental factors and stakeholders. Thus, it’s no surprise that water and energy’s fundamental connection has eluded policymakers for so long. With this post, I review the lessons discussed so far, so that policymakers can understand the key issues surrounding the energy-water nexus and what’s at stake if we fail to act now.

The Bottom Line

Conventional electricity sources, like coal, natural gas and nuclear power plants, require an abundance of water — about 190 billion gallons per day. Because the majority of our electricity comes from these sources, high energy use strains the water system and contributes to Texas’ prolonged drought. Coincidentally, extreme drought could force power plants to shut down.

Climate change is having a profound effect on our weather patterns, making extreme heat and drought more common in Texas and throughout the Southwest. If we don’t set the energy-water system on a sustainable course, we risk a compounded problem.

Read More »

Posted in Drought, Energy-Water Nexus, Environment, Texas Energy Crunch / Also tagged , , , , | Read 1 Response