Every day, hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells in Texas siphon fossil fuel from the ground, sending it on to dozens of refineries and processing plants across the state. Yet it's not enough: The biggest energy hog and carbon emitter in the nation, Texas has to import additional oil to satisfy its fuel needs. "We're the China of America," Michael Webber, a mechanical engineer at the University of Texas, told the 40 attendees at the 2009 CASW New Horizons in Science briefing in Austin. "We're the dirty, industrial heavy lifter."
Every day, hundreds of thousands of oil and gas wells in Texas siphon fossil fuel from the ground, sending it on to dozens of refineries and processing plants across the state. Yet it's not enough: The biggest energy hog and carbon emitter in the nation, Texas has to import additional oil to satisfy its fuel needs. "We're the China of America," Michael Webber, a mechanical engineer at the University of Texas, told the 40 attendees at the 2009 CASW New Horizons in Science briefing in Austin. "We're the dirty, industrial heavy lifter."
New technology, however, could go a long way toward cleaning up Texas' cruddy image. According to Webber, the state has the largest combined pool of renewable resources in the country, and the local government's relative lack of regulation makes it easy to exploit the green opportunities. "A carbon-constrained world is very good for Texas," Webber said.
Webber singled out several promising technologies:
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Wind. With about 9,000 megawatts of installed capacity, Texas leads the nation in wind power, according to material distributed at the talk. It is easy to obtain permission to build a wind farm in the state, and neighbors can't sue if their view gets blocked. The state-owned electricity grid is now being expanded westward to enable higher capacity.
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Solar. New transmission lines could also be used to transport solar energy. Only Arizona and Nevada outshine Texas in terms of sunny days, and this creates a large potential for photovoltaics.
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Plug-in hybrid cars. Since 2006, electricity provider Austin Energy has been promoting hybrid cars. Electric vehicles could help reduce fossil-fuel dependence and take advantage of cleaner energy sources. Scrubbing emissions from a few power plants is also easier than having to deal with millions of individual tail pipes, Webber noted.
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Carbon sequestration. Due to the industry's use of CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery, there are more buyers than sellers of CO2 in Texas. If carbon trading becomes a reality, it might be possible to store a lot of the nation's carbon emissions underground. Prompted by a question from the audience, however, Webber pointed out that the storage capacity would only amount to a fraction of emissions.
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Biofuels. Algae experts are collaborating with engineers at UT Austin to create second-generation biofuels out of pond scum. Today's biofuels are usually based on crops such as corn and soy beans, whose production is energy intensive and takes up large stretches of arable land. Algae require only bad water, sunlight and CO2, said Webber, "and Texas has all three." Although the UT researchers are still struggling to bring down production costs, preliminary analyses indicate that Texas could produce several billion gallons of biofuel per year. In comparison, the U.S. consumes about 140 billion gallons a year of gasoline and 40 billion gallons of diesel.
These technologies are all compatible with today's industry, Webber emphasized. For instance, the infrastructure needed to handle biofuels to a large extent is already present, providing an obvious opportunity for the oil industry. In Webber's words: "Texas can and will lead the green-energy competition, and we'll get really rich doing it."
Frederik Joelving is a Brooklyn-based science journalist, whose stories have appeared in Scientific American Mind, Science Illustrated and on SciAm.com and Wired.com. He is currently a graduate student in the Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program at New York University.
