Deep in the Heart of Texas

Peter Sinclair's latest segment of his YouTube series takes a hard look at climate disruption and Texas. In brings to mind a recent article about the city of Austin, which is spearheading efforts to move beyond coal. If the capital of the Lone Star State leads, will the rest of the state follow?

The state gets about forty percent of its power from coal plants, according to a report by Kate Galbraith in the Texas Tribune, and most of them were built in the 1970s and 1980s, so they are "newer and sturdier compared with the rest of the nation." That is a lot of power and investment that is not easily replaced, especially when energy is already scarce. But several proposed new coal plants have met with opposition from environmental groups, who claim they have successfully stopped the construction of eight out of eleven proposed plants.

-- Brian Foley