EDF welcomed today's announcement by President Obama establishing an Interagency Task Force on Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

In the next six months, the Task Force is charged with proposing a plan to "overcome the barriers to the widespread, cost-effective deployment of CCS within 10 years, with a goal of bringing 5 to 10 commercial demonstration projects online by 2016."

"By 2016?" a reporter asked me. "Is that doable?" I responded yes, absolutely. CCS as a technical matter is ready for deployment now. Read more »

When I started working on the Texas Green Jobs Guidebook last spring, talking to community college and workforce development folks around the state quickly made it clear that there was serious lack of information on what a green job is and what a person needs to find one. Read more »

The  proposed $3 billion petroleum coke-fired Las Brisas power plant in Corpus Christi suffered another setback Friday when the executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) said two significant environmental questions were not adequately answered by the plant's permit application.

Read more »

The old adage of Peter and Paul comes from the notion that if you borrow from one person to pay another, in the end, you are right where you started. You can spend time trying to convince Peter to loan you some money or just take the time to save up the money and pay off Paul all together. The first choice just leaves you owing somebody a big wad of cash. The second choice creates independence and sustainability, a debt-free life.

The city of Corpus Christi has a similar decision to make. The city council, and city leaders, must decide how to keep the city’s water supply sufficient for future users. Corpus has two choices, and they are choosing the wrong one. Read more »

Fans of clean air gained an important ally Monday against the proposed $3 billion Las Brisas petroleum coke-fired power plant in Corpus Christi – and it came from inside the state's own Texas Commission on Environment Quality!

December 14 was the deadline for legal briefs in TCEQ's permitting process for the enormous "pet coke" plant, and EDF attorneys filed our extensive brief against the permit, as did other interested parties. But we were pleasantly surprised by another brief against the plant filed by TCEQ's own Office of Public Interest Counsel (OPIC). Read more »

Now we’re talkin’.  Austin is already known as one of the “greenest” cities in the nation, and it looks like we’ll soon be even greener – and smarter, too.

The U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Nov. 24 announcement of $620 million in “smart grid” demonstration and energy storage projects included $10.4 million for the Austin-based Pecan Street Project. The grant will be used to fund an advanced smart grid project at the Mueller development in central Austin. The Mueller neighborhood – a public-private joint venture between the City of Austin and the Catellus Development Group – is located at the site of Austin’s former airport.

Read more »

Last week Austin Energy formally recommended to the city council that it begin planning for the 2012 rate case that we've known about for some time. A confluence of circumstances, including workforce issues, new transmission, rising fossil fuel costs and decreases in revenue this past year have made what will be Austin Energy's first base rate increase in 15 years (!) a real necessity. 

At this point only a few of the costs are known or even quantifiable, particularly the transmission and fossil fuel costs to the system. In looking at Austin Energy's report, the cost for new transmission to bring more wind to Texas will be less – about 0.7¢/month for the average customer in 2015. If fossil fuel prices don't increase more than they have over the past six years, the General Fund Transfer costs associated with fossil fuels might be only 0.4¢/kWh by 2015. Of course, that's assuming that Austin Energy stays smart and doesn't put too many more eggs in the fossil fuel basket. Read more »

Maybe you read the reports from the renewable energy industry like I do, but just in case you missed it: China is officially staking its flag on the Texas wind market. Fortunately it can't export the construction and installation of what will be one of the biggest wind power plants in Texas (and the U.S.), but China will be building all 240 wind turbines for this 36,000-acre project and shipping them here for installation.

Read more »

As Halloween draws near, beware of vampires – not the mythical blood suckers, but the unrelenting energy suckers draining power from your house right now. These costly creatures can add as much as 20 percent to a family’s utility bill, and that’s a pretty scary thought during these tough economic times.

Energy vampires are the appliances and electronics that continue to use our valuable electricity in standby mode even when turned off. Chargers without anything attached to them represent just some of the culprits. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that five to 10 percent of electricity used Read more »

The town of DISH, Texas (population circa 200) is located in the midst of the major natural gas drilling boom occurring in the Barnett Shale. DISH recently attracted national attention after publicizing results of air pollution measurements taken near a natural gas facility within the city.  DISH leaders hired a consultant to analyze air quality due to concerns about possible harmful effects of emissions from natural gas production on the health of its residents. Their measurements uncovered more than a dozen chemicals at levels that exceeded the Effects Screening Levels used by the Texas Commission on Environmental Read more »