Every now and then some good environmental news about our backyard comes along. It turns out that Austin, Texas is the number one city in America for clean technology industries according to SustainLane (“the premier online sustainability best practices knowledge base”), a recent Time Magazine article, and others.
There are a number of exciting advances in green technology happening in Austin.
Chief among them is the Pecan Street Project, the country’s largest urban ‘smart grid’ network. A smart grid allows utility companies to gain real time feedback from individual consumers across their entire network and should provide great increases in efficiency, reliability of service, and even enhanced security.
Austin recently opened the largest solar farm in Texas, a 30 megawatt facility in Webberville. The Webberville Solar Project is but one step in reaching the city’s goal of getting at least 35% of its energy from renewables by 2020. Other steps in this direction include the sale of the Fayette Coal Plant, a notorious polluter.
Clean tech companies like Joule Unlimited (a biofuels producer), HelioVolt (a thin film solar panel manufacturer), SolarBridge (which makes AC modules for solar panels), and many others make Austin a creative hot spot for the industry.
This great environment for the clean technology industry did not just appear out of thin air. A strong partnership between our local (city owned) utility (Austin Energy), the University of Texas’s Clean Energy Incubator (a program which provides venture capital funding and laboratory space to new businesses), Austin’s forward thinking city council, and state and federal funding sources provides the unique conditions for the clean tech sector to flourish. The Pecan Street Project, for instance, was partially funded through a large grant from the 2009 Federal Stimulus.
This year’s elections will have very real consequences for the burgeoning clean technology industry in Austin. While I’m sure Brigid Shea (a former councilwoman and Save Our Springs director) would be a stalwart environmental defender, Lee Leffingwell has some very real accomplishments he can point to. The partnership between public utility, university, private enterprise, and city council works in Austin in a way it doesn’t work anywhere else. I would be very cautious about making major changes here.
Today’s the last day to formally ask the EPA to enforce the Clean Air Act in Texas.
Sierra Club our environmental partners, bicyclists, medical communities, and interfaith partners delivered comments last week from more than 2,000 Texans to officials at the Region 6 headquarters of
the EPA in Dallas and we want them to hear from even more of us today!Here’s the story on KERA public radio in Dallas.
What’s all the fuss about?More and more Texans are realizing that Texas is in the problematic position of having more proposed coal plants than any other state in the nation.With 12 in various stages of construction or permitting challenges, Michigan, second worst with 4 planned coal plants, leaves Texas in the really big dust.
Texans are learning that coal plants make people sick.Medical practitioners have become increasingly involved in opposing Texas coal plants – particularly in Corpus Christi, the site of the proposed Las Brisas pet coke plant; in Austin, which could become the first municipal utility in the state to reject coal; and in Dallas, which is downwind of the majority of Texas existing coal plants and has been in non-attainment of federal air quality standards.At the EPA last week, Dallas-based pediatrician, Dr. Karen Lewis with Physicians for Social Responsibility said, “Coal plants in Texas emit huge volumes of heavy duty respiratory toxins and we're seeing skyrocketing rates of asthma and respiratory illness in children.”Dr. Lewis addressed mercury pollutionwhichleads to developmental and neurological disorders in children, “Doctors recommend that pregnant women not eat large fish and limit their intake of smaller fish, but can we talk about where the mercury in such otherwise healthy food as fish comes from?The bottom line is that we shouldn’t be building more coal plants in Texas.”
There are other reasons to fight coal plants.Coal plants cost too much.And, costs are rising as new, more protective clean air standards become law.The new standards will place many additional regions of Texas in ‘non-attainment’ status jeopardizing federal funds and they will require coal plants to install costly new scrubbers. Texans don’t need to foot this bill when we live in a state with so much clean energy know-how and wind and solar resource.
Coal plants also cause global warming and use enormous amounts of water.This is a serious problem in Texas where we experience extreme drought.
Fortunately, more people are becoming actively involved.People are hearing about the second wave of the Texas coal rush in part thanks to Forrest Wilder’s Texas Observer article ‘Coal Star State’ and also thanks to hundreds of Sierrans, our environmental partners and bicycling community friends who came out to Roll Beyond Coal at rallies, bike rides, and hikes in five Texas cities on October 31.Sierra Club’s long time chemist, former state regulator, and clean air warrior, Neil Carman believes that the recently appointed new EPA Administrator at Region VI in Dallas can make a difference in the coal plant fight.
We got a hopeful sign last week when a company decided that it won’t import PCBs and burn them in Port Arthur.He thinks the new EPA can also intervene on TCEQ’s habit of permitting big coal polluters.
Sierra Club will continue challenging coal plants in Texas and we need your help!Let the EPA know today that you want them to block Texas coal plants and take a serious look at the 17 existing coal plants.
Looking over at the farm links at Blue 19th, I found this article on wind power. Republican State Representative David Swinford is pushing for expansion of wind power in the western Panhandle. The problem holding things up is the lack of a connection between the Southwest Power Pool (SPP), the grid that serves the panhandle, and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which serves the rest of Texas. This brings up a couple of issues where there is a distinctive lack of leadership in District 19.
First - where is the voice calling for greater use of wind power in this District? Is Amarillo windier than Lubbock? Actually, as I write this, the average wind-speed around the Lubbock area is actually higher than in Amarillo - 12 mph vs. 10 mph. That's a significant difference because most wind-power experts see 12 mph as the "cut-off" line where wind-power actually starts to get a mathematical edge for generation of electricity. A 2.6 mph increase in windspeed actually doubles the output of a wind-powered generator.
Plans are in the works to give Texas the distinction of being home to one of the largest wind farm in the United States. From the AP:
Texas officials announced plans today for the nation’s largest offshore wind farm, consisting of as many as 500 windmills out in the Gulf of Mexico.
Houston-based Superior Renewable Energy will build and operate the project, which will be situated within about 10 miles of Padre Island. It is expected to cost $1 billion to $2 billion and should be ready in five years.
Its 400-foot turbines would generate a total of 500 megawatts of electricity, or enough energy for 125,000 homes.
The Texas State Energy Conservation Office has an interesting map of ideal locations for windfarms in Texas. The past two days I've been planning to write a long post about the environmental and economic benefits and drawbacks of wind power, but somebody at DailyKos beat me to the punch. Check it out.
Texans are learning that 
