The Battle For Energy

How Big Companies Are Fighting Climate Change

By Elliot Wolcott

Energy is something that comes in many forms. However, in modern times we split most of the energy we use in day-to-day life into two categories: renewable and nonrenewable energy. Although many activists have spoken out about companies using nonrenewable resources, many companies have opted to use nonrenewable energy sources. This has created turmoil between the two groups.

Many companies in Austin are centered around energyThe biggest company that uses fossil fuels is Texas Gas Service, (TGS). They do not have a great reputation, as they’re rated 1.8 stars on Google with 91 reviews.

An employee of TGS, Jasmine King-Bush works as an energy efficiency program manager. “My job entails providing a platform for our customers to use our natural gas service more efficiently, hopefully saving money on their bill and helping to save energy.”

She vouches for TGS because she says “People should know that natural gas can burn very cleanly and that when delivering natural gas to the end user.” Another reason she vouches for TGS is that they “Are constantly engaging with R and D organizations to find out how we can recapture gas and put it back on our lines and use it.” TGS hasn’t shown much of the research they have done, however, it does promise the fact that they are researching with multiple organizations.

The general need from the public has been to electrify everything and to remove all nonrenewable energy sources, however, Jasmine argues that it may not be that simple. She says, “A lot of people want to electrify everything, and I understand that, but they don’t necessarily understand that most electric companies, if not all, get a lot of their power from natural gas.” This has been proven in the past, with a recent blizzard in the Austin area forcing the reliance on natural gas to get energy to homes throughout Austin. There is very little concern for consequences, as it seems, from the activists. Jasmine supports this idea by continuing from the previous quote, saying, “So if you ban natural gas, you’re really impacting, the ability to get electricity and in Texas specifically, the grid for most of Texas is not very reliable and so, say in storm Urie, a couple of years ago when the electric companies were losing power, our customers, our residential customers still had heat.”

TGS has done the research for creating a more stable platform for natural gas, with the researcher from Austin Energy, Gracie Coates, even stating that “Texas Gas has lobbied to have energy efficiency programs, but we’re not required to, so we don’t make revenue on our programs and we don’t receive any financial incentive,”

A different energy service other than TGS is known for its relatively low rating as well. Austin Energy has a rating of 1.5 stars on Yelp with 320 reviews. Most reviews of both companies complain about their customer service.

Gracie Coates decided to speak on the various sources of energy used by large corporations today. “America as a whole has a campaign to go 100% renewable.”

“Texas is part of Environment America, so Austin Energy is one state chapter. We don’t have chapters in all of the states in the country, but we do have a chapter in Texas.” This means that, although Austin Energy is one company, it is controlled by a larger company in the U.S., called Environment America. The main subject of conversation surrounding Austin Energy and Environment America is how “America as a whole has a campaign to go 100% renewable.” This requires companies to bottom up and end their entire business, or possibly even have to convert their entire commerce to renewable energy.

Austin Energy encourages renewable energy as a result of America’s plan to go 100% renewable, with lots of research into solar and wind energy. They cannot promise a date when they will go fully renewable, however, that isn’t to say it is impossible.

Gracie says “We are always encouraging renewable energy. Right now it seems like we don’t have the capacity to completely rely on it right now, so it’s not feasible to say no oil and gas as of 2023, but we’re just trying to get as much renewable energy on the grid as possible.”

It isn’t as if there is not a basis for renewable energy already however, as she stated that “Texas is ranked second in the country for solar and first in the country for wind power. And they have tripled in the past decade.”

She explained the various types of energy by talking about their pros and cons and considered how each one has its own strengths, however, she believes that nuclear energy is best for the future. She does, however, believe there is a risk that comes with using nuclear energy. Claire stated “So basically with nuclear energy first, there is a risk. America as a whole believes that there is a risk of using nuclear energy because it can result in death if there is a single manual error. You can process nuclear energy in an open loop system or a closed loop system the way that other countries like France does it, and it’s a continual system.”

A continual loop system is a system that allows for little maintenance with maximum energy output. It eliminates most of the risk by allowing nuclear energy to flourish

By Fireice~commonswiki,

Diagram of Schematics for an RMBK Reactor

Sakurambo, Emoscopes - Own work based on: Magnox reactor schematic.svg, CC

BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3579057 by itself without any human interaction. The nuclear reactor in Chernobyl was an RBMK reactor, which had some key flaws that made them very unsafe.

Gracie also advocated for natural gas, as it’s a much more stable energy source than renewable energy.

“Unlike other renewables like solar and wind, you can always just use natural gas. It won’t depend on if the sun is shining or if the wind is blowing. You can just have that as a backup. So it’s more dependable than all renewable energy sources.” Her research concluded that coal, even though it is nonrenewable and still used today, is very inadequate compared to other sources of energy.

“There’s a bunch of different types of coal, and so the more that you mine for coal, the more you run out of the higher density, energy-dense kind, and you get into the cheaper dirtier coal, which is less energy efficient when you burn it.” This means that coal is unviable for the future, even if we continue to use nonrenewable energy resources.

Even with all the energy types she has researched, most of the energy taken in one state would usually all be put on one state’s power grid. For Austin Energy, their power goes on to Texas’s power grid. The main difference with Texas’s power grid is that “Texas has an electric grid, like no other area of the country.” Gracie continues to explain that, “Basically what’s happening right now is that Texas has its own electric grid. It’s separate from the East and the West. So it avoids a lot of federal regulations.” This creates conflict, as with the avoidance of regulations, Austin Energy and Texas Gas Service can avoid lots of requirements.

The future of Austin Energy and Texas Gas Service is changing, however, as she stated that “Basically the PUC (Public Utility Commission of Texas) are thinking about redesigning Texas’s whole electric grid after the winter storm. Now they’re considering what’s called a performance credit mechanism, which is kind of like a capacity market in the way that power generators will have to basically promise a certain amount of energy output in low reserve hours when people need it the most and it doesn’t benefit renewables as much.” This would make it so Austin Energy and TGS would have to promise an amount of energy they would produce during the lows, times when energy is hard to come by. Some activists have questioned and challenged said companies, such as Paul Robbin who is against both Austin Energy and Texas Gas Service. Paul Robbin has been an on-and-off activist ever since 1979, with his main focus right now being the rates structure in Texas Gas Service.

Paul Robbin has “been working on energy issues on and off since 1977. [He]

Austin Energy. Paul said, “I’ve focused on the two main power providers in the Austin area, Austin Energy and Texas Gas Service.”

Regarding both of the companies, he said that “I would suspect that many large corporations in Austin could do a lot more.”

He said that “Austin Energy to its core [is] frankly, a bureaucracy. But they’ve done a whole lot more than many other utilities in the state and they’ve certainly done a whole lot more than Texas Gas service.” started out as an anti-nuclear activist opposing the South Texas Nuclear Project.”

“There’s a lot of climate activists out there, including a lot of them in Austin and we’re doing any number of things in the last few years. I have worked on fair electric rates.” Because he is focusing more on fair electric rates rather than other climate issues, he has shifted his focus to TGS and Austin Energy.

Paul Robbin has a lot to say about climate change, especially about TGS and

In short, he sees Austin Energy as a company with no representation of the people’s interests, even though it is “Austin” Energy. In total, he sees the flaws in both companies, with their ideas and how they both run. TGS has been researching ways to cleanly burn natural gas to respond to the requests of the people, however, their rate structure is extremely flawed. Austin Energy has been researching all types of energy but is still using nonrenewable energy. Whether it’s natural gas, nuclear, solar, or wind, some type of cleaner energy sources will likely be incorporated into how we will get our energy from the electric companies in Austin.