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Pumpjacks operate next to large wind turbines Friday, July 8, 2022, near Midland.<\/p>\n
Jon Shapley\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re celebrating Earth Day today, make sure to thank Texas. That\u2019s because both the holiday and the broader environmental movement were launched partially in response to the Apollo-era space program, whose orbital altitude let us see the beauty of our planet<\/a> from a new perspective. And none of that would have been possible without our state\u2019s Johnson Space Center. It\u2019s fortuitous that the Artemis II mission timed its success in the lead-up to this year\u2019s Earth Day, setting Texas up to repeat this feat.<\/p>\n Yes, there is a certain irony in claiming that an oil and gas state like Texas plays a critical role in the larger environmental movement. If Texas were a country, we would be the world\u2019s third largest<\/a> gas producer and fourth largest<\/a> crude oil producer. At the same time, we\u2019re also successful at building renewable energy \u2014 we have the world\u2019s sixth largest<\/a> installed wind capacity, and rank third for battery energy storage<\/a> systems and in the top ten for utility-scale solar. Texas also led the way in new solutions such as the lithium-ion battery<\/a> and carbon sequestration<\/a>.<\/p>\n These facts are not contradictions: When it comes to energy, Texas operates at a large scale and moves quickly \u2014 and that\u2019s what it takes to pursue environmentalist policy in the year 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n ALSO: This Earth Day, Houston’s air is getting dirtier.<\/a><\/p>\n Our rapid and large-scale deployment of natural gas, wind, solar and batteries has facilitated coal\u2019s decline<\/a> at home, reducing emissions along the way. Our exports of LNG have slowed coal\u2019s growth<\/a> abroad, achieving similar effects elsewhere. We lead the world in carbon dioxide sequestration and serve as one of the world\u2019s largest producers of hydrogen. Our industrial sector has shown the world how to efficiently combine heat and power at large refineries and other petrochemical facilities to make valuable products more cleanly than at other facilities around the world. We should be proud of this record.<\/p>\n But there is more Texas can do.<\/p>\n We need to accelerate activities that reduce emissions, such as electrifying the oil and gas sector. By using electric submersible pumps deep in their wells, oil and gas can be lifted with lower cost and less energy use. Using electric equipment<\/a> at the surface for processing and pipelines dramatically reduces emissions and improves safety. And using electricity to liquefy gas at the coast to export to customers abroad helps to ensure our gas is clean enough to meet other countries\u2019 strict standards<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Texas has also been expanding our power transmission system, which will reduce costs for consumers, improve grid reliability, create jobs and facilitate more wind and solar power plants. More than a decade ago Texans came together to support the statewide Competitive Renewable Energy Zone initiative (CREZ), which invested $7 billion<\/a> in new transmission lines to help bring clean wind and solar power from west Texas to major cities and industrial facilities in the eastern half of the state. That program was a resounding success and showed the world that Texas is good at building new transmission lines.\u00a0<\/p>\n