Texas as Energy Leader and Laggard

Republican Governer Video

mentioned Energy and Jimmy Carter

Talarico’s views on federal legislation

permitting reform, tax credits, biofuels mandates, funding for Department of Energy

Governor HInoja Appointments

• public Utility Commission of Texas

• Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

• Texas Water Development Board

Lt. Governor Roles

• determines schedule of bills to be considered

• determiens legislative priorities

Comptroller Role

The State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) manages pass-through federal funds for energy conservation, industrial efficiency, and education programs

Commissioner Flores Role

• manages state lands and state waters

• megotiates leases for oil and gas on state lands

Amount of State Waters in Texas

9 nm

Prior Commisioner stance on wind

refused to grant permits for offshore wind but did aprove offshore carbon sequestration

Commissioner Tucker Role

• benefit from federal biofuels policies

• impacted by data center development

Commissioner Rosenthal Role

• will regulate oil and gas production and pipelines

• no major changes yet since there is still a Republican supermajority

Natural and Geological Resources in Texas

• vast oil and gas deposits

• Spindletop is a famous gusher

• East Texas Oil Field (6B Barrels)

• Permian Basin (3B Barrels)

• Alaska Prudhoe Bay (10B Barrels)

• #1 produce of oil in the U.S.

• Shell Oil innovated the use of oil tankers

• Refinery indsutry pops up along the channel

Austin Energy’s green building program

became the basis of LEED standards nationally

Texas Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)

• 1999: deregulate markets in electricity, 880 MW of total isntalled renewable power at then end of 2001 (Hydro), built a lot of wind

• 2026: wind, solar, batteries

Texas Transmission Lines Build-Out

• 2008: for Competitive Renewable Energy Zones (CREZ) for wind

• customers paid extra for it (but got cheaper wind out of it)

New Transmission in Texas

• Permian Basin Reliability Plan (PBRP), regional 345kV network in west Texas

• Strategos Transmission Expansion Plan (STEP), 765kV transmission backbone buildout in ERCOT

• will serve growing demand for oil and gas in Permian Basin

Texas Villion, Victim, and Victor of Climate Change

• villian: major emitter of greenhouse gases

• victim: suffer greatly from climate change

• victor: deploy low-carbon solutions quickly and at scale

Texas Global Rank in Natural Gas Production

#3

Texas Global Rank in CO2 Emissions

#6

Texas Global Rank for CO2 STorage via EOR

#1

Texas Rank of consumer of total energy and electricity in the U.S.

#1

Texas Consumption

• Result of Energy-Intensive Indsutry

• Texas expends much more energy on indsutry than the nation

• Texas does the nation’s indsutrial heavy-lifting

• large cars and large homes

The Texas Railroad Commission

• World’s first oil cartel

• originally chartered to handle rates for rail/freight

• expanded to include oil and gas and no longer regulates railroads

• most powerful local government agency in the world

• set production quotas

• superseded by OPEC

Permanent Univesity Fund (PUF)

• handles royalties from state lands

• UT takes 2/3

• has largest U.S. unviersity endowment

UT Leadership on Key Energy Issues

• Electrochemcial Storage (Prof. John Goodenough)

• Carbon Capture and Sequestration (amine-based capture, Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) with sequestration)

• Algal Biofuels

• World’s largest micro grid

• Nation’s most efficient power plant

Geothermal Resources in Texas

• with oil/gas production

• Yesterday: produce oil/gas, get hot water by accident

• Tomorrow: produce hot water, get oil/gas by accident

Texas losses from global warming

• more frequent and intense droughts, floods, heat waves and ice storms

• rising sea levels

• saltwater intrusion into freshwater aquifers

Hurricane Harvey

• 127 Trillion tonnes of water

• Houston sank 2 cm

• $136 B

• shut in 35% of national capacity of fuel

Floods affect on fuels sector

• crude production mostly unaffected

• oil prices stayed falt, gasoline prices icnreased

Largest Single Incident of AUtomobile Destruction

Hurrican Harvey

Primary driver of peak electricity demand during Winter Storm Uri

residential and commercial building space heating (doubled)

Power and Gas Demand during Winter Storm Uri

• Natural gas, coal, nuclear, wind and solar all underperformed

• Hydro overperformed

• natural gas failed first

• blackouts led to 1 TWh of unserved energy

• shortfall was due to very high demand and a large reduction in supply

If there was a total grid collapse

• would need to black start the grid

• could have taken weeks or months

• untested contingency plans (manual operations and possible equipment damage)

Summer 2023 Heat Wave

• 78 days over 100F in Austin

• 2nd hottest summer in Texas

Texas Heat Dome Lessons

• expect to use more energy for cooling in the summer and expect that use to increase as heat waves get longer and hotter

• electric heat for climate, high winter demand peak problems

• solar reduces peak demand, creates new net peak demand

• accumulated heat helps keep temperatures high at night so air-conditioning kept running

Long Summers on Power Plant Health

• more wear and tear and less time for maintenance

• tightens window

Equity Impacts of Heat

• redlined areas of cities (Austin) can see even higher local temperatures

• richer neighborhoods tend to have bigger lots, less concrete, more trees

• poorer neighborhoods tends to have darker road and building materials

Texas as profitable carbon capture and storage industry

• pioneered the use of geological CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the 1970s

• inject CO2 into reservoirs to increase oil production

• Texas improts CO2 from natural reserves in Colorado