BG Reads | News - July 12, 2022
[HEARINGS]
Tuesday
Wednesday
[AUSTIN METRO]
While the heat blazes on, city cooling centers close for the day (Austin Monitor)
City Council Member Natasha Harper-Madison warned last month that the city did not seem prepared for a summer heat wave that might leave any number of residents looking for air-conditioned shelter. As it turned out, the Council member herself became one of those residents when the power went out in her East Austin home on Monday.
As she explained on the?City Council Message Board, “I’m currently typing this post from City Hall, where I had to bring my children following a power outage in East Austin that left more than 3,400 Austin Energy customers without electricity, my home included. Earlier in the afternoon, the heat-index in our neighborhood hit 114 degrees. This is a heatwave we all knew was coming, but I worry we nonetheless were still not fully prepared for.” She had warned about such a possibility in a June?message to her colleagues.
The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for Travis County starting Sunday, urging residents to heed the warning to avoid becoming overheated. The temperature reached 110 degrees on Sunday and was expected to be as hot or hotter on Monday, though a brief isolated rain shower brought temperatures down to a high of 109 degrees. The forecast for Tuesday was 107 degrees, according to KXAN.
Harper-Madison was particularly concerned about her constituents and others who might not have the resources to escape the heat on their own. The city does offer cooling centers, which include selected recreation centers and libraries scattered throughout the city, that have been designated as places where Austinites can go to escape the heat of the day. Although libraries regularly stay open until 8 p.m., few of the recreation centers stay open after 4 to 5 p.m…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
City to limit amount of scooters on Congress Ave. to keep sidewalks clear (KXAN)
There will soon be less scooter congestion on Congress Avenue between the Texas Capitol and Lady Bird Lake.
The Austin Transportation Department is now limiting providers to 100 scooters on that stretch of Congress Avenue, and no more than five scooters per provider on each block between Colorado and Brazos Streets. No scooters are allowed on the West Second Street block on Congress Avenue just off Cesar Chavez Street.
The city said sidewalks are becoming too crowded with scooters parked along the heavily-traveled stretch. According to its micromobility data, the city said people took 100,000 scooter trips on that portion of Congress Avenue in the second quarter of this year.
“The new change has prevented hundreds of scooters from amassing in this busy area,” the city said in a press release, “keeping the sidewalks open while maintaining mobility options for everyone in the city…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Austin's economy shows signs of shifting to the north (Austin Business Journal)
Finishing touches are being done on the first phase of the Texas Capitol Complex renovation, which is expected to be completed this fall.
The 2016 Capitol Complex Master Plan governs the redesign of the Texas Capitol by expanding state offices to newly constructed buildings while creating larger spaces for civic involvement.?
The master plan has three phases; phase one, which is currently underway, involves the construction of two new state office buildings, a central utility plant, an underground parking garage for state employees, and the heavily anticipated Texas Capitol Mall.
When complete, the 3.5-acre mall will stretch from 11th Street?to 26th Street, providing easy accessibility from the Capitol grounds to the museum district and the University of Texas and allowing pedestrians to avoid the hustle and bustle of traffic on busy days. The mall will feature tree-lined pathways, an amphitheater and a large lawn for staged events, as well as electric bike charging stations, public art and a pocket park.?The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center has been involved in the excavation portion of the project to ensure that native plants are included in the landscaping of the mall. "The central city of Austin and its surrounding areas continue to grow, with growth largely concentrated to the north toward Williamson County. This means more urban-style development and jobs for Williamson County, which means many of its cities are no longer strictly bedroom communities of Austin-Round Rock," Adam Perdue, an economist at the Research Center, wrote in the study…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
Notley/Monitor Poll: Most Austinites think the city is headed in the wrong direction (Austin Monitor)
Earlier this summer, the Austin Monitor?set out to poll Austinites’ opinions on the most important issues facing the city and how well local government is addressing them. Over the course of this week, we’ll highlight what residents have told us about the city’s growth, challenges, governance and public safety.
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The survey, commissioned by?Notley?and conducted by national pollster?Change Research?for the Monitor, shows that residents are generally pessimistic about where the city is headed. Out of 507 likely voters in Austin surveyed June 24-29, a majority (57 percent) think Austin is “headed in the wrong direction.” Only 18 percent of respondents said the city is moving in the right direction and 25 percent were unsure.
Respondents had an even more negative attitude toward the city’s rapid growth. Nearly two-thirds (65?percent) said that Austin’s growth has been negative overall –?an opinion shared by the majority of every demographic group polled.?
On both measures, younger respondents are the most sanguine. A quarter (26 percent) of respondents 18-34 years old think Austin is headed in the right direction – a?higher share than any other age group. Fifty-four percent of younger voters believe growth has been bad, less than nearly all other demographic groups. Republicans are more pessimistic than Democrats on growth and on the city’s overall trajectory.
The poll is weighted by age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, ZIP code and 2020 presidential vote to achieve a representative sample of likely voters…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
[TEXAS]
Uvalde County sheriff to testify before Texas House panel on Robb Elementary shooting (KSAT)
The Uvalde County Sheriff Ruben Nolasco is expected to testify on Monday before the Texas House panel investigating the mass shooting at Robb Elementary.
The massacre on May 24 left 19 students and two teachers dead, with an additional 17 people reported to have injuries.
Nolasco will participate via video teleconference after initially refusing to do so. He changed his mind after being issued an official notice.
On Sunday, hundreds joined the Unheard Voices March and Rally in honor of the students and teachers who died in the shooting…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
ERCOT's calls to conserve power might become common during summer heat (Austin American-Statesman)
Texans got a taste Monday of what experts say is likely to become a common occurrence this summer if the ongoing heat wave doesn’t let up: urgent requests to curtail electricity usage during peak hours to help avoid rolling blackouts. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid, asked residents and businesses across the state to conserve electricity between 2 and 8 p.m. Monday amid projections indicating the grid would be strained to near capacity. ERCOT said the request was precautionary and that it didn’t expect rolling blackouts to be necessary. In addition, ERCOT had not declared the initial stage of an energy emergency as of late Monday afternoon. That designation allows ERCOT to take a number of steps short of initiating rolling blackouts, such as ordering large industrial users that are paid to be part of its emergency response programs to throttle back usage.
Still, its own initial forecasts called for peak demand of nearly 80,000 megawatts, which could have come within 500 megawatts of estimated generation capacity at one point during the day, a dangerously slim margin. Those projections didn’t include the potential beneficial effects of ERCOT’s appeal for conservation or emergency response programs that it had yet to deploy. Taken together, such measures can curtail demand by several thousand megawatts. The agency's conservation appeal and other nonemergency initiatives appeared to be sufficient, however, with the grid in significantly better shape as of 4:30 p.m. Monday, when supplies were exceeding demand by about 3,700 megawatts. But Beth Garza, a former Austin Energy manager and independent market monitor for ERCOT, said conditions could be similarly tight on numerous days this summer if there’s no break from the high temperatures that have been prompting people statewide to crank up their air conditioners. Temperatures throughout Texas are expected to remain high at least through the coming weekend, but ERCOT officials didn't say Monday afternoon whether they intend to ask for additional conservation this week…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
A heat wave without wind is a problem for the Texas grid (Dallas Morning News)
Wind power — a key source of electricity in Texas — is being sidelined just when the Lone Star State needs it most, with turbines generating less than a 10th of what they’re capable of producing. A scorching heat wave is pushing the Texas grid to the brink. Power demand is surging as people crank up air conditioners. But meanwhile, wind speeds have fallen to extremely low levels, and that means the state’s fleet of turbines is at just 8% of their potential output. Texas may be America’s oil and gas hub, but it’s also long been the country’s biggest wind-power state. The renewable energy source has become highly politicized: Some critics blamed frozen wind turbines for the Texas grid’s failure during a deadly winter storm last year, even though disruptions at plants powered by natural gas were the bigger culprit. The current lows for Texas turbines also point to a broader contradiction facing the world as it transitions to cleaner energy sources.
While countries across the globe are generating more electricity from intermittent wind and solar sources, large-scale, battery storage is still in its ascendancy. That leaves major grids more fragile and vulnerable to shock. Depressed wind power during heat waves isn’t a new phenomenon. Powerful high-pressure systems that cause intense heat often squelch wind production — just when more power is needed to meet higher electricity demand. The mass of air overhead stifles wind near the surface, until the mass moves elsewhere. Right now, one of those high-pressure systems is sitting directly over the Lone Star State. There is hope that wind power will be much more robust Tuesday, when the weather pattern is expected to shift toward New Mexico. “High pressure is sinking air, so right under the ridge — like today in Texas — air is sinking straight down to the ground,” said Matt Rogers, president of the Commodity Weather Group, a commercial forecaster that looks at energy and agriculture…?(LINK TO FULL STORY)
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