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A recent report from Deloitte provides a good perspective on the prospects for wind and solar electricity.

Some takeaways:

Costs of wind and solar are now competitive with coal and gas. “Power purchase agreement (PPA) prices for wind and solar power are also competitive with other resources. The weighted average US price for the first half of 2021 from auction and PPAs for solar PV is US$31/MWh, while for onshore wind it is US$37/MWh. This compares to a weighted average wholesale electricity price of about US$34/MWh across US markets during the same period.” It now costs less to build new solar and wind plants than to continue operating existing coal-fired plants. Wind and solar costs are projected to fall by half by 2030.

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After the Texas freeze last February that resulted in loss of electric service to millions of Texans, the Texas Legislature passed laws requiring the Texas Railroad Commission and the Public Utility Commission of Texas to address the issues raised by the systems’ failures. One of those issues was the failure of natural gas supply to electric generators. Senate Bill 3 and House Bill 3648 require the RRC to collaborate with the PUC “to adopt rules to establish a process to designate certain natural gas facilities and entities associated with providing natural gas in this state as critical customers or critical gas suppliers during energy emergencies.” In response, the RRC has proposed a new rule, 16 TAC Section 3.65. The purpose of the new law is to let the PUC know what gas infrastructure is critical to continued delivery of gas to electric utilities during an electric supply crisis so that gas supply won’t be disrupted because gas suppliers don’t have the electricity necessary to operate their systems.

As explained in the RRC’s explanation of its proposed rule, the RRC proposes to designate all gas infrastructure as “critical.” The proposed rule therefor designates as critical gas suppliers and critical customers all wells producing gas and casinghead gas, gas processing plants, gas pipelines and facilities, compressor stations, local distribution company pipelines and facilities, gas storage facilities, natural gas liquids transportation and storage facilities, saltwater disposal facilities and pipelines, and “other facilities under the jurisdiction of the Commission the operation of which is necessary to operate any of the facilities” listed above. In its comments to the proposed rule the RRC explains that all of these facilities are “necessarily critical customers of electric entities during an energy emergency.”

The Commission chooses to include these facility types, located up and down the entire natural gas supply chain, because the statistics from Winter Storm Uri reveal that during the storm, every molecule of natural gas was important. … Each piece of the supply chain included in [the list of critical customers] contributes to the delivery of gas downstream. If one piece of the supply chain cannot operate, then the gas cannot be delivered for electric generation or other important uses. Further, daily gas production alone many not be adequate for peak demand during a weather emergency, which makes gas storage an important source of natural gas. Thus, natural gas storage facilities are included ….

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Here’s a novel idea: use gas that would otherwise be flared to generate electricity in the field and use it to mine bitcoin. Believe it or not, it is being done. In North Dakota, Equinor and Enerplus are among the operators using the process. New companies like Crusoe Energy have sprung up to provide the in-the-field equipment. Crusoe has some 40 mobile generating units in oil shale basins and plans on increasing that number to 100. A recent conference in Houston on the subject saw 200 oil and gas execs and bitcoin miners in attendance.

Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency or digital currency, created in 2009. There is no physical coin, only a balance kept on a public ledger. It can be used to purchase goods and services, for those companies that accept bitcoin as payment. Mostly, bitcoin are bought and sold as a type of investment. As of this writing, one bitcoin sells for $47,706.80. Bitcoins are not backed by any hard asset or any government.

So what is “mining” bitcoin? See explanation here. “Bitcoin mining is performed by high-powered computers that solve complex computational math problems; these problems are so complex that they cannot be solved by hand and are complicated enough to tax even incredibly powerful computers.” One with a computer that solves the problem is given a “block reward,” currently 6.25 bitcoins. The amount of electricity being used to run computers mining bitcoin is enormous; the global bitcoin industry’s consumption of electricity is causing emissions of 60 million tons/year of CO2. That’s the equivalent of about nine million cars.

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Excellent post by Tiffany McDowell of Texas A&M Ag Extension on what landowners should know about hunting leases. Find it here. For example, did you know that landowners leasing their property for hunting must obtain a Hunting Lease License (different from a hunting license) from Texas Parks & Wildlife? There are three types of Hunting Lease Licenses. Also good information about liability waivers. Check it out.

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“Electric power markets in the United States are undergoing significant structural change that we believe, based on planning data we collect, will result in the installation of the ability of large-scale battery storage to contribute 10,000 megawatts to the grid between 2021 and 2023—10 times the capacity in 2019.”

EIA Report “Battery Storage in the United States: An Update on Market Trends.

How much is 10,000 megawatts? What is a megawatt?

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Abbott said the legislature’s response to the breakdown of Texas’ electric grid “fixed all the flaws.” News media reports and experts are questioning that conclusion.

A UT Austin study concludes that lawmakers did not do enough to prevent future power failures and recommended 20 additional policy changes. It is estimated that as many as 700 people died from the freeze.

At least part of the blame lies with the Legislature’s deregulation of the state’s power sector in 1995 that was supposed to save ratepayers money. According to a Wall Street Journal analysis, customers in deregulated areas have paid a surcharge of $28 billion over the last two decades, whereas customers in areas that remain regulated–including El Paso Electric, Austin Energy and CPS Energy in San Antonio–enjoy cheaper electric rates than those in deregulated areas.

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Every once in a while I like to write about something other than oil and gas. I got these interesting facts about eggs from a friend.

  • The color of eggshells is solely dependent upon the breed of the chicken providing the eggs.  There is no difference in taste imparted by the color of the shell.
  • The “sell by” date specified on the packaging or eggshell itself is not an expiration date.  The eggs should be good for another 3 -5 weeks after the sell by date.  If you are unsure if the egg is good to eat, place it in some water in a glass.  If the egg remains at the bottom of the water, it is good to go.  If the egg inverts to a vertical position, eat that sucker now because it is just about over the hill.  If the egg rises to the top of the water and floats, chuck that thing.
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In a recent article, reporter Chris Tomlinson of the Houston Chronicle castigates Railroad Commission Chair Christi Craddick for testifying before a state legislative committee in March that the State’s oil and gas industry had no responsibility for the February power blackouts in Texas. Craddick testified:

Some media outlets would have you believe that natural gas producers and frozen transmission pipes caused the power shortage across the state, but I sit before you today to state that these operators were not the problem – the oil and gas industry was the solution. Any issues of frozen equipment or delays in process restoration could have been avoided had the production facilities not been shut down by power outages.

A recent report by twelve University of Texas at Austin faculty members, funded by the Public Utility Commission, contradicts Craddick:

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Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, blogger at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, alerted me in her blog to a bill passed in the last session of the Texas Legislature, HB 365, that Texas landowners should know about. The bill amends the Texas Farm Animal Liability Act, Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 87. The Act offers landowners protection from liability from injuries caused to “participants” resulting from an inherent risk of engaging in a “farm animal activity”.

The bill was passed to address an issue with the Act addressed in a Texas Supreme Court case, Waak v. Rodriguez, 603 S.W.3d 103 (Tex. 2020). The Waaks breed Charolais cattle on their ranch in Fayette County. They hired Raul Zuniga to help with the cattle. They instructed him to move some cattle to a different pasture, including a 2,000-pound bull. They later found Zuniga dead in the pen with the bull, cause of death blunt force and crush injuries. Zuniga’s parents and surviving children sued the Waaks for wrongful death and survival claims, alleging negligence. The trial court dismissed the case on the ground that the Farm Animal Activity Act barred the claims. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the Act did not apply. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the Waaks were not entitled to the protection of the Act. The Act limits liability for injury to a “participant in a farm animal activity” that results from “inherent risk” of such activities. The court held that Zuniga was not a “participant in a farm animal activity” as defined in the Act.

HB 365 broadens the definitions of participant and farm animal activity so that they would cover injuries sustained in handling cattle like the activity engaged in by Zuniga. (It also now includes bees as farm animals covered by the Act.)

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