In Summer Heat, ‘Artificial Shortages’ in Texas Grid May Have Cost $8 Billion

Electricity prices soared even when supply was ample, an independent monitor said. The state’s market operator said it was intentional.When VJ Arizpe installed solar panels connected to batteries at his home in Houston last year, he did so to avoid the kind of power outages that had plunged much of Texas into darkness in the middle of a winter storm… Read more

Tear Down the Barbed Wire Criss-Crossing the American West

“Wherever a farm may be located, or whatever may be its production, fence, fence, fence, is the first, the intermediate, and the last consideration,” the farmer and journalist Sereno Edwards Todd wrote in 1860. Fences keep livestock in and predators out, and both were imperative for the settlers drawn to the Great Plains by the government’s promises of free land.… Read more

I.E.A. Says Oil Is Near Its Peak, but Climate Change Is Far Fro

Despite the rapid growth of electric vehicles and solar power, other efforts to tackle warming are lagging, according to the International Energy Agency.Cleaner energy technologies like electric cars and solar panels are spreading so rapidly that the global use of oil, coal and natural gas could peak this decade, but countries will still need to pursue more aggressive measures if… Read more