Eight Tar Sands blockaders just climbed 80 feet into trees in the path of Keystone XL construction, and pledged not to come down until the pipeline is stopped for good. TransCanada workers are starting to arrive on the scene. The tar sands blockade folks will be tweeting and live blogging as today’s action unfolds so check for live updates throughout coming days…weeks?!
Posts Tagged ‘Texas’
BREAKING – 8 blockaders begin tree-sit in path of Keystone XL construction.
Posted in Tarsands, tagged Civil Disobedience, Keystone Pipeline, Oil sands, Tar Sands Blockade, Texas, transcanada, TransCanada Corporation on September 24, 2012 |
Tar Sands Blockaders held for two days on Class B misdemeanor charges
Posted in Tarsands, tagged Keystone Pipeline, keystone xl, Tar Sands, Tar Sands Blockade, Texas on September 21, 2012 |
Update:
Around 11 am today, after 48 hours, the five tar sands blockaders who were jailed on Wednesday in Franklin County were freed! They were being held on a $2,500 bail each. Click here to keep up with what is happening with the blockade.
On Wednesday, September 19, 2012 around 8:00AM, three landowner advocates and climate justice organizers locked themselves to a piece of machinery critical for Keystone XL construction in Franklin County, Texas. They did so to defend David Hightower’s. As construction crews arrived at Mr. Hightower’s to begin clear-cutting his trees and home vineyard, Tar Sands Blockade supporters were in David’s front yard continuing their vigil
By 11:30 am, five arrests had been made at the Keystone XL construction site outside Winnsboro, Texas. The three brave blockaders locked to tree clear-cutting machinery delayed operations at the site for the day.
All 5 of the arrested blockaders were still in jail at the end of the day on Thursday since the four Franklin County justices of “peace” refused to hold a bail hearing. None of them are “available.” They are scheduled to go before the judge around 8 or 9 this morning, Friday, September 21.
As of this time, we have not heard whether they have been released.
Halliburton loses radioactive rod used in fracking, calls in National Guard
Posted in Fracking, Radiation, tagged Halliburton, hydraulic fracturing, National Guard, radioactive rod, Texas on September 19, 2012 |
Somewhere between Pecos and Odessa in southwestern Texas, Halliburton has lost a seven inch radioactive rod used in natural gas fracking.
Workers discovered the rod was missing on September 11th. A lock on the container used to transport the radioactive rod was missing, along with the rod inside. Trucks have retraced the route of the vehicle, but have had no luck tracking it down so far.
This rod contains americium-241/beryllium which the health department says is not something that produces radiation in an extremely dangerous form. (Not sure what that means – I mean who even knew they used radioactive rods for fracking) But it’s best for people to stay back, 20 or 25 feet. (Seriously, what does this mean?) Apparently you would have to have it in your possession for several hours before it is considered dangerous.
The National Guard has been asked to step in and help search for the missing rod, so if you are out driving in that 130 mile area and find a seven inch stainless steel cylinder about an inch in diameter, marked with the radiation warning symbol and the words ‘Do Not Handle’, well . . . DO NOT HANDLE, stay back at least 20 feet, and call the National Guard.
NRC Whistleblower Claims Threat To Nuclear Plants Covered Up By Regulators
Posted in Nuclear, tagged huffington post, Nuclear, Nuclear power plant, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Texas, whistleblower on September 18, 2012 |
According to the Huffington Post, not one, but two, whistleblower engineers at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission have accused regulators of deliberately covering up information relating to the vulnerability of U.S. nuclear power facilities that sit downstream from large dams and reservoirs and failing to act to despite being aware of the risks for years.
One plant in particular — the three-reactor Oconee Nuclear Station near Seneca, S.C. — is at risk of a flood and subsequent systems failure, similar to the tsunami that devastated the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility in Japan last year, in the event that an upstream dam fail.
The Fort Calhoun nuclear facility in Nebraska was surrounded by rising floodwaters from the nearby Missouri River in 2011.
Given the extreme weather patterns the world has seen in the last decade, that likelihood seems greater than it did when these plants were built.
A report, completed in July of 2011, after the earthquake and subsequent tsunami flooded the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant was heavily redacted in a move, the whistleblower claims, to prevent the public from learning the full extent of these vulnerabilities, and to obscure just how much the NRC has known about the problem, and for how long.
The report examined vulnerabilities at the Oconee facility, the Ft. Calhoun station in Nebraska, the Prairie Island facility in Minnesota and the Watts Bar plant in Tennessee and concluded that the failure of one or more dams sitting upstream from several of these nuclear power plants “may result in flood levels at a site that render essential safety systems inoperable.” High floodwaters could conceivably undermine all available power sources, the report found, including grid power, emergency diesel backup generators, and ultimately battery backups. The risk of these things happening, the report said, is higher than acceptable and warranted a more formal investigation.
The heavily redacted copy of the report is publicly available on the NRC website.
Click here to read the Huffington Post’s entire investigatory story.
Don’t blame wind energy for lack of new power plants
Posted in Renewables, tagged CPS Energy, Energy, renewable, Texas, wind power on September 18, 2012 |
Check out Public Citizen’s Texas director’s, Tom “Smitty” Smith, response to CPS Energy CEO Doyle Beneby‘s op-ed in the San Antonio Express last week that blamed Texas wind power plants for creating problems by producing such cheap power that it made it hard to build new gas plants or profitably operate those we have.
Click here to read “Don’t blame wind energy for lack of new power plants”
Clean Energy Works for Texas Urges Action on Non-Wind Renewable Portfolio Standard at Public Utility Commission of Texas
Posted in Consumers, Energy, geothermal, green jobs, renewable portfolio standard, Renewables, solar, tagged Clean Energy, CPS Energy, geothermal, geothermal energy, green jobs, Public Citizen, public citizen texas, renewable energy, Renewables, SEED Coalition, Sierra Club, solar, solar power, Texas on September 13, 2012 |
Yesterday, Clean Energy Works for Texas – a coalition consisting of Public Citizen, Sierra Club, Texas BlueGreen Apollo Alliance, Progress Texas, Clean Water Action, Environment Texas, North Texas Renewable Energy Group, North Texas Renewable Energy Inc., SEED Coalition, Solar Austin, Solar San Antonio, Texas Campaign for the Environment and Texas Pecan Alliance – filed a petition with the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUC) asking for a rule-making to implement the non-wind renewable portfolio standard (RPS).
A law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2005 established that at least 500 megawatts (MW) of the electricity used in Texas would come from renewable energy sources other than wind by 2015. The PUC, however, has failed to establish rules to ensure that this goal is reached. Clean Energy Works for Texas calls on the PUC to fulfill its statutory duty and create rules to ensure that the goal is reached. The petition also proposes and expansion of that goal to 3,000 MW by 2025.
The non-wind RPS would provide a level of certainty for investors considering Texas for clean energy projects. While the wind industry has thrived in Texas, thanks, at least in part, to the RPS, other renewable energy industries have lagged behind. Implementation of the non-wind RPS would send a signal to investors that Texas is open for business. At at time when nearly a million Texans are looking for work, developing 21st century industries here in Texas should be a priority.
Texas has immense solar resources, as well as substantial geothermal resources that, if developed, could be providing the State with additional electricity that it needs. Electricity market regulators and policy-makers have had numerous discussions about electricity generation shortages over the past year. The petition filed by Clean Energy Works for Texas offers a solution – and it’s one that can be expanded upon in the coming years.
Please visit www.CleanEnergyWorksForTexas.org to learn more and send an email to to the PUC in support of the non-wind RPS.
The fight against a foreign company taking Texans’ property rages on
Posted in Tarsands, tagged Eminent Domain, Keystone Pipeline, Texas, Texas Railroad Commission, transcanada on September 13, 2012 |
UPDATE 10/2/2012 –
The court in Beaumont has given TransCanada the right to begin building portions of the Keystone XL Pipeline through Johnson County.
County Court at Law Judge Tom Rugg Sr. did blocked access to one parcel of disputed land until the company meets legal requirements giving proper notice to all parties.
Earlier, Rugg made clear that he believes Texas law required him to grant a writ of possession to TransCanada to construct parts of the politically controversial pipeline to carry Canadian tar sands to Gulf Coast refineries. He added that technical issues needed to be resolved first that his further ruling determined that TransCanada file two necessary surety bonds required by law of $20,000. He ruled. “As those bonds have two sufficient sureties, the statutory requirements for the issuance of writs of possession are now met.”
In a central matter in the case, Rugg said a different court would need to determine whether TransCanada is a common carrier with the power to seize land under eminent domain law.
UPDATE: While Judge Rugg expressed regret for the lack of clarity from the higher courts. “I’m left with no guidance from Denbury,” he said. He, nevertheless promised to rule by Sept. 24th. We will let you know as soon as we hear about the ruling.
KEYSTONE PIPELINE V. TEXAS RICE FARMERS SET FOR HEARING – Must TransCanada prove common carrier status before trenching begins? That is the question Polly Hughes of the Texas Energy Report poses in the article reprinted below.
A battle over the right of pipelines to seize private land heads to court again Wednesday when the Texas Rice Land Partners challenge TransCanada’s use of Texas eminent domain law.
TransCanada has begun construction of the southern leg of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline from Cushing, Okla., to Texas Gulf Coast refineries. The pipeline, which will carry oil sands, also referred to as tar sands, has stirred controversy with environmentalists who say a spill of the heavier diluted bitumen would be far more treacherous for waterways and aquifers than spills of ordinary crude oil.
“The Keystone XL crosses and exposes threats to water resources for the Carrizo- Wilcox Aquifer, which feeds and supplies water, drinking and agricultural resources for up to 10 million Texans,” Chris Wilson, an anti-tar sands activist opposing TransCanada’s pipeline told members of the Texas Railroad Commission Tuesday.
At issue in the Jefferson County Court at Law case in Beaumont is whether TransCanada has a right to take possession and begin trenching on land before the company proves its has eminent domain rights, according to the activist group known as TURF, Texans Uniting for Reform & Freedom.
The defendants in the case, James and David C. Holland and the Mike Latta Family, make up the Texas Rice Land Partners who sued the Denbury Green Pipeline Co. over its right to seize land under eminent domain law and won at the Texas Supreme Court. The courtunanimously ruled that before the company could seize private property and claim eminent domain rights, it needed to prove it was a common carrier serving a legitimate public use. Merely self-declaring common carrier status by checking a box on a one-page administrative form at the Railroad Commission was not enough.
Debra Medina, a former Republican gubernatorial candidate who has taken up the eminent domain battle with parties opposing TransCanada, said the defendants will ask the court to require the company to prove its common carrier status and right to use eminent domain before it grants a writ of possession allowing trenching to begin.
She said 60 pipelines cross the Holland Family’s land, but only two – Denbury Green and TransCanada – have resorted to using eminent domain law rather than reach a mutually satisfactory financial agreement with the family.
“This landowner wants a fair price,” she said, adding that she thinks the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling means the burden of proof is on TransCanada and not the landowner.
Ramrodded by veteran reporter Polly Hughes, the Texas Energy Report’s Energy Buzz specializes in what is happening on the ground in Texas energy ranging from dedicated coverage of the Texas regulatory agencies to battles in the Legislature that affect the future of the industry.
Copyright September 11, 2012, Harvey Kronberg, www.texasenergyreport.com, All rights are reserved. Reposted by TexasVox.org with permission of the Texas Energy Report.
We will report on the outcome of this court case when it becomes available.
During a high power use emergency the cost of wholesale power could jump 18,000 percent to a $9,000 per megawatt-hour wholesale power price cap
Posted in Energy, tagged electric rates, Price ceiling, Texas, texas public utility commission on September 12, 2012 |
Did you know that your retail electric provider may be working behind the scenes to drive up energy prices? A review of filings at the PUC show that several Texas retail electric providers are pushing hard for the approval of super high wholesale energy price caps and for a very expensive capacity market that will trickle down to you, the ratepayer, in increased energy bills. These proposals, by their very design, will make energy more costly.
Check out the new blog post at the Recharge Ratepayer Report.
EHF – a bad bet and a big bluff
Posted in Air Quality, Coal, tagged air pollution, energyfutureholdings, Luminant, Texas on September 7, 2012 |
Back in March, the Dallas Observer reported about the chance that Energy Future Holdings (EFH – formerly TXU) the state’s largest power generator, was verging on bankruptcy, Our question then was – are Texas ratepayers going to have to pay for EHF’s bad bet?
Before and since then, there has been a lot of talk about how the EPA is threatening our ability to keep the lights on in Texas. It was just last fall that Dallas based Luminant claimed that it would be taking 2 coal-fired generating units at the Monticello plant offline due to the cost of complying with newly proposed EPA regulations.
Now, with EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule off the table, Luminant is going to take the Monticello plant offline for the winter season anyway. The reality of the energy market in Texas and across the U.S. is that coal isn’t the cheapest option anymore.
Now comes the Dallas Observer with a new article questioning EHF’s Luminant generation division’s claim that EPA regulations are going to be the cause of plant closures.
Brantley Hargrove writes:
Does Texas’ biggest electricity generator, Dallas-based Luminant, just have one hell of a poker face, or should we not read too much into Friday’s announcement that it will idle two units at its Monticello plant for six months? If you’ll recall, the company threatened to idle the units last summer, a time when record demand almost forced rolling blackouts. It claimed that an EPA rule designed to reduce the amount of harmful air pollution wafting across state lines was going to force the company to remove 1,200 megawatts from the grid, enough to power more than a million homes.
Texas politicos were quick to pile onto the agency’s “job-killing” regulations, which they said threatened the very integrity of the grid. “As expected, the only results of this rule will be putting Texans out of work and creating hardships for them and their families, while putting the reliability of Texas’ grid in jeopardy,” Gov. Rick Perry scolded from the presidential campaign trail.
“The rule will impose great costs on coal-fired power plants, causing some to shut down or curtail operations, threatening the state’s electrical capacity reserve margins needed to avoid power disruptions during times of peak demand,” Texas Commission on Environmental Quality director Bryan Shaw warned. “Such a scenario could lead to blackouts, which create serious health risks for Texans dependent on reliable energy.”
To hear them tell it, Texas was given a brief reprieve when a federal appeals court stayed the rule pending oral arguments. And when it tossed the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule altogether last month, the court’s decision was heralded as a decisive coup for Luminant and Texas electric reliability.
“EPA’s illegal micro-managing of state air-quality plans was so specific that immediately after the rule-making it was clear that coal-powered energy production at Texas-based plants operated by Luminant, a big utility, would have to be cut,” a Wall Street Journaleditorial opined. “Tuesday’s ruling means Luminant will be able to keep 1,300 megawatts of power online in Texas, which needs more electricity because unlike other parts of the U.S. in the Obama era it is growing.”
But no sooner had Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott crowed over his “defeat” of the “EPA overlords” than Luminant announced it would idle those two Monticello units anyway. Awkward. For between six or seven months, starting in December, they will sit dormant. Luminant spokesperson Allan Koenig blames low power prices. Monticello has been running below capacity as it is, he says. They’ll be back online in time for next summer’s heat wave. In the meantime, somehow, Luminant won’t lay anybody off.
What Koenig says about the power market is true: The price of electricity fell along with the price of natural gas back in 2008. Ever since then, their bottom line has gotten pinched, along with everyone else’s.
But Luminant is a special case, troubled by a unique predicament, causing some to wonder whether we can lay everything at the feet of the cruel market. The real problem came (as we examined in a March cover story, “Blackout Blues”) when private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts saddled the former TXU with tens of billions of dollars in debt. The bull electricity market KKR was betting on went bearish, and the newly reconstituted Energy Future Holdings’ already daunting mountain of debt became insurmountable. Analysts think the company’s preparing for an impending bankruptcy.
So, the coal-fired plants KKR expected Luminant to ride into profitability are now cheaper to shut down, particularly when seasonal electricity demand is low. That makes sense. It made sense, too, that as the generator navigated treacherous financial straits, costly pollution controls on aging, depreciating coal-fired units wouldn’t be the wisest investment. It’s one big expense they can’t currently afford. Nor can it afford to lose money by running a coal-fired plant.
It all causes one to wonder, though: Now that the threat of regulation has, albeit momentarily, passed, and the units it threatened to shut down because of clean air rules have gone dark anyway, what was the point of all that brinksmanship? Was Luminant playing a high-stakes game of chicken to ward off regulations by threatening to idle a plant it was going to idle regardless of the outcome? Luminant’s Koenig says the shut down is “in no way related” to last year’s regulatory standoff. “Federal regulation is very, very different from low power prices,” Koenig says. “We can’t control either, but we can respond to regulation and low power prices. The argument to me, it’s absolutely apples and oranges.”
Yet others in the industry say it’s all about the market. Always has been.
“These regulations will not kill coal,” John Rowe, until recently the leader of one of the country’s largest generators, told an audience at an American Enterprise Institute conference. “In fact, modeling done on the impacts of these rules shows that up to 50 percent of retirements are due to the current economics of the plant due to natural gas and coal prices.”
If fingers need to get pointed anywhere, point them in that direction, and at LBO architects that left the company all but incapable of navigating these choppy Texas waters.
We are wondering the same and believe market factors are impacting the coal industry more than the EPA and the current administration.
BREAKING! 3 Blockaders Locked to Equipment to Halt Work at Another Keystone XL Site!
Posted in Tarsands, tagged Civil Disobedience, Keystone Pipeline, Texas, TransCanada Corporation on September 5, 2012 |
Update:
At 11 am this morning, after over 48 hours in the Franklin County jail, the 5 tar sands blockaders who were arrested on Wednesday were freed. They were being held on a $2,500 bail each. Click here to visit the Tar Sands Blockade blog to find out what is happening.
At 7AM Wednesday morning, September 5, 2012, three landowner advocates and climate justice organizers locked themselves to equipment used for clearing large trees in the path of the Keystone XL pipeline. Shortly thereafter, seven trucks with 20-25 workers showed up at the site to meet their foreman only to be turned away. One truck with a ditch witch continued on to the easement. The trucks that brought the workers to the site all had out of state plates from Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania. The protesters didn’t know if any of the workers on those trucks were from Texas or not, but it begs the question about TransCanada’s claims that this will bring jobs to Texas.
This action halted work on a segment of TransCanada’s illegitimate pipeline outside of Saltillo, TX. The organizers tell us that they are fulfilling their promise of their campaign of nonviolent civil disobedience pushing forward.
You can track what is happening at the site throughout the day at the Tar Sands Blockade blog – http://tarsandsblockade.org/.
State Employee Charitable Campaign up for Sunset Review – Hearing Wednesday, September 5th
Posted in Good Government, tagged Charitable organization, SECC, Texas on August 29, 2012 |
In 1993, the state legislature created the State Employee Charitable Campaign (SECC) to provide a new benefit for state workers. The ability to make tax-deductible contributions to a wide range of charities through their paychecks has giving state employees an easy way to donate to charities of their choice and raised more than $9 million for charities in 2011.
If your charity is a participant or you are a state employee who donates through this system, a coalition of individuals and charitable organizations are working to find a small number of articulate supporters of SECC to speak at a hearing on Wednesday Sept. 5 at the State Capitol or submit comments to the Commission by September 10th.
Check out their blog at www.SECCTxSunset.com.
BREAKING – 4 Blockaders are Locked to Truck Carrying Keystone XL Pipeline in Livingston, TX, bringing construction on the Keystone XL pipeline to a stop!!
Posted in Tarsands, tagged Civil Disobedience, Keystone Pipeline, Texas, TransCanada Corporation on August 28, 2012 |
4 Tar Sands Blockaders are Locked to Truck Carrying Keystone XL Pipeline in Livingston, TX, bringing construction on the Keystone XL pipeline to a stop!!
Follow the action right now on the Tar Sands Blockade LIVE BLOG and tell the world about it.
Just minutes ago four landowner advocates and climate justice organizers locked themselves to the underside of a massive truck carrying 36″ pipe intended for Keystone XL construction. The truck is parked, idled at the entrance of the pipeyard, rendering construction activity impossible. Seven blockaders total are onsite risking arrest. The Tar Sands Blockade will be getting photos and video throughout the day.
This action comes in response to a recent court ruling giving TransCanada the green light to steal a piece of Texas landowner Julia Trigg Crawford’s home. Last week, Lamar County Judge Bill Harris insulted this hardworking local farmer by sending a 15-word summary judgment to her from his iphone. It’s an injustice they vow won’t be allowed to stand.
The blockaders tell us this is only the first of many actions coming down the pipeline, and that is how they intend to win—with passion, persistence and people power.
Arrests are expected, and these brave souls will need all the support that we can give them as they are jailed for justice.
TransCanada tried to keep the start of construction on this pipeline a secret, and the Tar Sands Blockade was there to expose it. They are letting them know how serious they are by shutting it down for as long as they can today.
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