Reporting and commentary on the Texas energy industry and innovations shaping its future
Depositions in a recent lawsuit reveal that state rep Tom Craddick, his wife and son, and his daughter, Christi, who leads Texas’s oil and gas regulating agency, profit from industry deals not available to just anyone.
What’s behind the Legislature’s relentless campaign against wind and solar power, which are saving Texans billions?
In the eighties, petroleum prices went through the roof, and Texans, flush with cash, went a little crazy—before it all came crashing down. Will we ever learn?
It took him a while to get here, but now he’s out to transform our state with new technologies—if our leaders’ hostility toward renewable energy (and his Twitter misadventures) don’t get in the way.
Let’s crunch the numbers on what it would cost to avoid another “oakpocalypse.”
They washed the crude off their hands and put on suits and ties. Or sensible blazer-and-skirt combos.
Along with its descendant, the towering wind turbine, this spindly mechanism turns fast and slow, measuring out our days.
The state avoided a disaster during the recent Arctic blast, but a sizable number of electricity generators still struggled in the cold.
When Bruno went missing, Alex Reyna lost a key member of his oil-field crew.
On a farm near Flatonia, Mike Shellman closes the chapter on nearly sixty years in the business.
When Texas Monthly covered Enron's fall in 2001, we wondered if the company was an outlier or the new normal. There's no longer any question.
On a state advisory committee, only one member has experience developing wind or solar power. And he’s voiced some eyebrow-raising ideas.
Homeowners could take much more burden off the power grid, if cities and utilities would get out of the way.
The oil giant this week announced quarterly earnings that set an all-time record for any Texas business. That’s both good and bad news for the state.
Put the umbrella down. A viral Facebook post offers some bad advice to Texans about how to stay cool in this summer’s record-breaking heat.
Enjoying that AC? Thank the mighty power of the sun and the renewable energy source keeping the grid afloat.
Our state struggles to serve Texans’ needs on the hottest and coldest days. So why are we welcoming the energy-hogging cryptocurrency industry?
Patching it cost the state $1.6 million. Many others are similarly falling into disrepair, and the agencies charged with their oversight are doing nothing about them.
After an abandoned well began spewing toxic, salty water onto her Permian Basin land, Ashley Watt would stop at nothing to determine the cause—and to hold Chevron accountable.
No one had a deeper understanding of Texas power—its heroes and villains, its uses and abuses—than Paul.
Bobby Sakowitz dressed Houston’s most stylish through the seventies and eighties boom years. Then things went bust.
Joe Nocera’s pitched profile of then-little-known T. Boone Pickens got him unprecedented access to Pickens’s 1982 attempt to take over Cities Service.
That is, whenever the industry can sort out supply-chain issues and labor shortages.
Former staff writer Nicholas Lemann remembers how Exxon refused to cooperate with his story—and why that made all the difference.
Russia’s war on Ukraine has made it practically patriotic to pump oil, but the Permian hasn’t ramped up production. Don’t blame Washington. Blame Wall Street.
After Putin met Tillerson, billions were made, but at what cost?
The campaign for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, usually a low-profile affair, is getting more attention—and that’s a good thing.
An energy crisis on the Continent has it desperate for help from the Permian natural gas it had earlier spurned.
State leaders did little to prevent future blackouts, but ERCOT should have the electric supply to meet skyrocketing demand this week—so long as there are no major system failures.
Turns out the Permian Basin well that's been blowing briny water 100 feet high isn't the well the Railroad Commission thought it was.
One year after the deadly blackout, Texas officials have done little to prevent the next one—which could be far worse.
The salty water spewing high on a Crane County ranch could be a sign of a “whack-a-mole” future in the Permian Basin.
NET Power says it can deliver zero-emission electricity to the Texas grid, but is its sustainable-energy business sustainable?
Oil-field medics face long hours, grisly accidents, desolation, and low pay. So why do they do it?
Elon Musk’s company aims to transform the energy business. So, of course, it’s relocating to the energy capital.
The state’s shale fields are quiet, keeping supply tight and energy bills higher.
Texas start-ups are harnessing know-how born of the shale boom in pursuit of a greener future.
Tesla has filed to become a Texas power retailer in a move that could shake up an already fast-changing market.
It’s a question we are once more forced to ponder—and one for which we have an answer!
Our electric system can’t deliver the power we need when we need it most. But political leaders don't seem all that interested in fixing the problem.
Governor Greg Abbott said the Lege has done everything necessary to prevent future blackouts. We ask four experts whether that’s true.
The much-maligned—now bankrupt and outlawed—electricity provider offered just the sort of experiment Texas’s energy deregulation sought.
Major setbacks this week may force the oil giants to speed efforts to curb carbon emissions and invest in renewables—and perhaps even abandon the search for new fossil-fuel plays.
The state's energy business has long counted on tax breaks and other largesse. Whether renewables or fossil fuels get more depends on how you do the math.
Famed portrait photographer Dan Winters shifted his focus to a new character, the Permian Basin, as the storied region weathered a historic oil bust.
In announcing an ambitious renewable-energy push this week, the Biden administration highlighted a vessel under construction in Brownsville as proof of the economic opportunities of going green.
The lieutenant governor wants to require state pension and education funds to divest from financial giants that are trimming their investments in oil and gas—but he hasn’t thought through the potential consequences.
Public Utility Commission chairman Arthur D’Andrea apologized to investors last week for the “uncertainty” around its profits.
The bankruptcies and staggering electricity charges are beginning to arrive. Could it go from bad to worse?
State leaders have pointed fingers at everything from windmills to the bureaucrats at ERCOT. But the real issue is the electric grid’s reliance on a lightly regulated natural gas production industry.
