Energy & Environment

Texas lawmakers target water, energy and environmental hazards in new legislation

Travis Bubenik

Barring a veto from Gov. Greg Abbott, these will soon become law in Texas.

A plane drops retardant on a 2024 Panhandle wildfire in Sanford.

Bills introduced a year after state’s largest blaze seek to limit wildfires

Jayme Lozano Carver

Among the proposals is a bill that would force more inspections of power lines, which a committee concluded ignited a blaze that burned more than 1 million acres last year.

Rusty Towell, founding director of Abilene Christian University's Nuclear Energy Experimental Testing, describes the workings of a molten salt testing device installed in the NEXT lab in Bennett Gymnasium at Abilene Christian University on April 8, 2021.

Companies are coming to Texas to develop a new generation of nuclear reactors

Dylan Baddour

The state is aggressively pushing to deploy the next generation of atomic energy that would power big industrial operations.

An array of oil pumps operate outside of Tarzan on Sept. 15, 2023. Oil and gas companies released less methane during the extraction phases, according to a new report. But critics of the industry are skeptical.

Oil companies leaked less methane in West Texas, a new report says. Environmentalists are skeptical.

Carlos Nogueras Ramos

Methane is a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and is 80 times the potency of carbon dioxide.

A sign outside an apartment complex in the North Loop neighborhood in Austin warns of freezing temperatures during the February 2021 winter storm.

Market manipulation led to power grid failure in 2021, lawsuit alleges

Elijah Carl | Texas Standard

A three-year-long legal battle led by CirclesX, a Houston-based pipeline analytics firm, had its first hearing in Harris County.

A person carries a bucket of firewood in South Austin during the winter storm in February 2021.

The Texas blackout played a big role this election year, but will it move voters?

Mose Buchele

High electricity bills, grid reliability and industry political donations got a lot of attention in the governor's race. But polling suggests voters' minds are now elsewhere.

Pigeons fly over a power plant in Midlothian owned by Vistra Corp. Texas power plants like this on are preparing for the cold weather to avoid another blackout.

Listen In, Lubbock: Making sense of the 2021 Texas blackout

Sarah Self-Walbrick

More than a year and a half ago, the Texas power grid failed and left millions cold, hungry and in the dark for days during a powerful winter storm. The Texas Newsroom podcast “The Disconnect: Power, Politics and the Texas Blackout” looks at what happened and how it affected people.

The Hale Wind Farm is outside of Petersburg and south of Plainview.

Why the Texas grid causes the High Plains to turn off its wind turbines

While wind farms in the region could help power and lower energy costs for at least 9 million homes, significant infrastructure upgrades would be needed to supply electricity from the region to other parts of the state.

ERCOT, the state's electric grid operator, is asking Texans to conserve power this afternoon and evening.

Here's what it would take for ERCOT to start rolling blackouts

Mose Buchele

Texas' electric grid operator has actions it can take to reduce energy demand and increase supply short of ordering power cuts.

Amid rising natural gas prices, Texans see spike in summer energy costs

Gabriella Ybarra

The price hikes come as Texans grapple with high costs at the fuel pump and in grocery stores.