Yes.
See Tom Fowler, "More woes loom for electric grid," Houston Chronicle (chron.com), August 25, 2011. The point of this story is that troubles lie ahead for Texas's electric grid.
"We got trouble! We got trouble! It starts with an e and it rhymes with t and it stands for trouble!" (Sorry. Couldn't help it.)
The lede lists three reasons:
[1] A prolonged drought, [2] looming environmental rules and [3] shortcomings in the incentives for building new power plants could cause even more problems with [read for] Texas' [read Texas's] electric grid next year.
The drought hurts power plants by drying up their cooling reservoirs, Mr. Fowler reports. Fair enough, but hasn't the hot weather also kicked up demand for power? An editor should have inquired.
The second issue -- looming environmental rules -- is where things get sticky. The key grafs:
In July, the [EPA] issued the final version of its Cross-State Air Pollution Rules, which require reductions in nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide and particulate emissions that cross state lines and contribute to ground-level ozone.
An earlier draft version didn't mention Texas, but under the final rule, more than 25 percent of the reductions would need to come from Texas power plants as early as January 2012.
The rule could force the shutdown of several plants in Texas, particularly those that run on lignite coal, state and industry officials say.
This should have been the lede. The drought is old news by now. The Chronicle has already reported that the weather is hot and that, as a result, Texas's power plants are struggling to keep up with demand.
That the federal government is prepared, arguably, to shut down much-needed Texas electricity plants in pursuit of its environmental goals is the real story.
Not only is the real story buried, but its importance is also minimized by two paragraphs about a research report by a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. that says, according to Mr. Fowler, "that Texas coal plants could meet the new emissions restrictions if they used their existing scrubber systems for longer periods" or by "mixing their lignite with lower sulfur coal."
Bernstein is a respected Wall Street research firm. Here is the report. It is consistent with Mr. Fowler's reporting.
But is it right? What about competing analyses? The Bernstein report itself says other Wall Street research claims "CSAPR puts 4.6 [gigawatts] of lignite coal-fired capacity in Texas at risk of retirement." Why weren't Texas sources or other Wall Street analysts asked to answer the Bernstein report?
The real reason, probably, is lack of space. What should have been the lede was crammed into nine paragraphs -- one an introduction to the issue; two about the regulations; two about claims by state and industry officials that the regulations might shut down some plants; one about a possible Texas lawsuit against EPA; and two about the Bernstein report.
But this story is more important than that. It deserved more space and more enterprise.
The best we can say is that Mr. Fowler has queued up the regulatory issue for local readers. More is needed. I doubt, however, that we will see it. From the Chronicle's perspective, it's been covered. The end. Move along.
Which brings me to part three of Mr. Fowler's analysis: "shortcomings in the incentives for building new power plants." If you can make sense of this part of Mr. Moran's story, you're a better reader than I. It's basically a plaint about Texas's regulatory system, based -- so far as I can tell -- on the theories of one source, an officer of a power-plant developer.
His editors would have done an act of kindness by lopping it off and telling him to bring it back as a separate story after he had worked on it some more. If this is indeed a story, it needs more space, more sources, and more coherence than were possible in Mr. Fowler's jampacked three-fer.
The main point of this post should not be lost, however. The drought is a story. The business about new plants may be a story. But the big story, the real story, the story that needed attention today is about the new federal regulations. It belonged at the top. It deserved more paragraphs. It deserved more care. And it deserved to be featured above the fold.
* * *
No, seriously, what does Unca D really think?
The EPA is on a warpath against coal-fired plants and against Texas. These new regulations mark the effloresence of our president's blithe willingness to bankrupt power companies and cause electricity price to "necessarily skyrocket" in pursuit of environmental Nirvana.
Our local newspaper is run by executives and editorial writers who still love this soon-to-be-one-term president. They are also, still, untroubled by the presence of even one unapologetic political, cultural, economic, or religious conservative in their ranks who might counsel otherwise.
And the newspaper is operated by reporters and editors in thrall to environmentalism, sympathetic to government (except Texas's) and the regulatory state, and deeply skeptical of business and of political, cultural, economic, and religious conservatives.
Today's story is what such a newspaper produces. It is incapable of doing otherwise.
UPDATE: Thanks for the link from my friends (and yours) at Texas Watchdog and Texas Iconoclast. (Maybe I should change to Texas Unca D.)
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