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September 21, 2011

ECONOTES 2011-09-21: Environmental Headlines for the Houston Region

Featured

  1. Green Groups Add Muscle in Texas, Gird for Uphill Battles (Nathanial Gronewold – The New York Times, 09/14/2011)
    The Green Movement is expanding in Texas as environmental organizations are spreading their influence across the state. Texas has been known for being a pro-development, pro-business state where oil is king. Now many companies are concentrating on the renewable energy industry, and environmental groups are pushing to make the state greener. One such group, The Sierra Club, is fighting to keep coal-fired plants from coming online.
    http://www.nytimes.com/
  2. Rice wins grant to develop CO2 capture technology (Guidry News, 09/20/2011)
    A Rice University research team has been awarded a grant by the Department of Energy to develop technology that can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capturing carbon dioxide from power plants. Coal and natural gas fired power plants account for about half of the carbon dioxide that humans add to the atmosphere each year. The research team would like to curb this by creating less-costly technology that separates CO2 from flue gas at normal air pressure. The goal is to have a full-scale test of the technology within three years.
    http://www.guidrynews.com/
  3. To make it to 2060, water plan needed (Chris Paschenko – The Galveston County Daily News, 09/18/2011)
    This may become Texas’ worst year of drought. The impact on agricultural losses is already $52 billion. Discussions at the Harris Galveston Subsidence District conference covered the water needs projected through 2060. The Texas population is expected to increase from 25 million (today) to 45 million in 2060, which will spike the water demand. When projecting how to meet the state’s water needs through 2060, the board expects 34 percent to come from surface water, 17 percent to come from major reservoirs, 17 percent to come from irrigation conservation, 9 percent to come from groundwater, and 3.4 percent to come from desalination.
    http://galvestondailynews.com/

EcoNotes