Justice – Texas Style
I can’t work out whether this story on NBC, which is entitled Texas Taqueria Customer Fatally Shoots Masked Robber And Returns Money To Patrons, Police Say, makes me feel carrying guns is a good or bad idea?
But at least he seems to know how to use his weapon, as he only hit one person; the robber.
Fracking Has a Bad Rep, but Its Tech Is Powering A Clean Energy Shift
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Texas Monthly.
It shows how former frackers are developing their techniques to do the following.
- Extract heat and energy from shale using water.
- Store energy safely underground.
- Drill deeper and better geothermal wells.
One of the companies; Quidnet has been backed by Bill Gates and his friends. I wrote about Quidnet Energy a couple of years ago in How Do You Save Clean Energy? This Company Plans To Pump It Underground.
And all in environmentally-friendly ways, that would get a seal-of-approval from a committed anti-fracker.
It’s the best article I’ve read this week.
Lightweight Green Supercapacitors Could Quickly Charge Devices
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Texas A & M Today.
This is the sub-title.
Texas A&M researchers have designed a new energy storage device that can store a charge up to 900 times greater than state-of-the-art supercapacitors.
It appears what they have developed is plant-based.
They appear to use lignin and potassium permanganate to create the electrodes for a supercapacitor.
It looks to be interesting research.
Newcomer Broad Reach Power To Deploy Increasingly Large Battery Systems In Texas
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on Energy Storage News.
This is the introductory paragraph.
US-based independent power producer (IPP) Broad Reach Power has said it will build 15 projects in Texas in 2020, each of them just under 10MW / 10MWh, with construction on six of them set to begin this summer.
The article then goes on to describe the electricity industry in Texas and where the battery storage fits in.
It’s all a far cry from the Texas portrayed in soaps like Dallas.
Wind Power In Texas
Wind Power in Texas has its own Wikipedia entry and this is the first paragraph.
Wind power in Texas consists of over 40 wind farms, which together have a total nameplate capacity of over 28,000 MW (as of 2019). If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world: The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state.
But then everything in Texas, is famed as being the biggest in the world.
Their installed capacity of 28 GW compares with 17.64 GW of installed wind power in the UK.
Solar Power In Texas
Solar Power in Texas also has its own Wikipedia entry and this is the first paragraph.
Solar power in Texas, along with wind power, has the potential to allow Texas to remain an energy-exporting state over the long term. The western portion of the state especially has abundant open land areas, with some of the greatest solar and wind potential in the country. Development activities there are also encouraged by relatively simple permitting and significant available transmission capacity.
The Wikipedia entry also says that in 2019, Texas had 4.32 GW of installed solar power.
By comparison, the UK has 8.1 GW of installed solar power. Who’d have thought that?
As Texas is 2.87 times geographically larger than the UK, if Texas had the same solar panel density as the UK, Texas would have an installed capacity of 23.2 GW.
The Need For Energy Storage In Texas
With all this installed wind and solar energy in Texas and its potential for expansion, there would appear to a massive demand for energy storage in the state.
Conclusion
What would JR think?
The Texas Bullet Train
In the past, I have spent quite a few hours driving the long distances around Texas.
This article in Global Rail News is entitled Progress For Texas’ High-Speed Railway.
Texas Central Railway is proposing a high speed rail line between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, with the following characteristics.
- 240 miles long.
- Stations at Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.
- Routed along major infrastructure corridors like Interstate highways and freight railways.
- Ninety minute journey time.
- A train every thirty minutes.
- Based on Japanese Shinkensen technology.
- Wikipedia mentions, that the line could open as early as 2020.
- Possibility of expansion to Austin and San Antonio.
- Fluor Corporation, which is a very large engineering and construction company, headquartered in Texas, is involved in the design.
There’s more here on the Texas Central web site.
There’s also an appraisal of the line in this article in Dallas News, which is entitled Proposed Routes for Dallas-Houston High-Speed Rail Revealed.
Some points from the article.
- Dallas would like the railway to connect to their extensive DART light rail system and perhaps even terminate at Dallas Union station.
- A construction cost of $10 billion is given.
- An in service date of 2021 is given.
Dallas certainly seems in favour of the project.
Conclusion
There certainly seems to be a degree of good will and support for this project.
Being Texas, they just had to label it a bullet train, but I’m more surprised that they seem to use railway instead of railroad.
America – The Sick
This film is being advertised all over London at the moment.
America – The Sick
After the latest shootings in Connecticut, who needs a chainsaw?
Anyway the original massacre happened in Wisconsin, not Texas.
But judging by the number of adverts, the film is probably an absolute dud.
A Man Who Got More Than He Wanted at Wal-Mart
This story about a man, who got bitten by a snake in Wal-Mart, looks like a beanfeast for American lawyers. Incidentally, in all of my travels, I can’t remember seeing a snake in the wild. I did have a taste of rattlesnake once in Texas. The old joke is it is like chicken with bite.
C also was very brave when it came to handling snakes and there are several pictures of her with them round her neck. The only animals she had a phobia of was chickens, turkeys and large ducks.
God Isn’t Listening
Apparently, Texas is in the midst of a drought.
According to The Times today, last April Rick Perry, the governor and Presidential candidate, lead a prayer for rain in the state.
And guess what?
It hasn’t rained.
Either God doesn’t exist or he/she doesn’t like the fact that Rick Perry executes a lot of people in his state.
The Great Advantage of Rick Perry As US President
He would be able to talk to President Ahmadinejad as an equal as they both have the same views on capital punishment.
This even extends to their views on the execution of juveniles!
The two are made for each other!
Comparing Texas and the EU
I found this on the web in a piece talking about the Texan use of the death penalty.
Luckily we don’t live in Texas, where they own around 51 million guns (more than all of the European Union combined) and the Encyclopedia Britannica is banned because it contains a formula for making beer.
The population of Texas is incidentally 24.7 million and that of the EU is 501.3 million. As to the Encyclopedia Britannica, I haven’t seen one in years and don’t know anybody who has one.
I’d be interested to know how many people are killed accidentally by guns in Texas every year.
The Anonymous Widower 