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In a guest viewpoint to the Austin American-Statesman several years ago, I championed the potential — even the promise — of our publicly owned municipal utility: Austin Energy.
Austin Energy has the capacity to set national standards. The Austin City Council’s recent decisions on non-carbon energy generation are fine examples of that promise: new solar installations, ubiquitous solar panels, and new battery storage power. Progress worth celebrating.
But there’s a cow-patty-sized glitch in the works.
In Piper Guinn’s recent Austin Free Press article I read that, Mayor Kirk Watson and Mayor Pro Tem Jose Vela encouraged Austin Energy to “hop into the queue and commit to buying” natural gas peaker power units.Here is the cow-patty problem with that. A landmark Harvard University study found fossil fuel air pollution responsible for one in five deaths worldwide and 350,000 premature U.S. deaths each year — driving premature births, leukemia, asthma, heart disease, and neurological damage in children.
As Shaye Wolf, lead author of a 2025 Oxford Open Climate Change review, stated plainly, “The science can’t be any clearer that fossil fuels are killing us.” Even short-term exposure to ozone and particulate matter increases rates of respiratory and cardiovascular disease, according to the Environmental Defense Fund.Guinn quoted Austin Electric Utility Commission Vice Chair Al Braden saying that East Austin’s Decker and Sand Hill likely will get the proposed new peaker plants because the infrastructure for them already is there. “East Austin has been saddled with our generation plants since the 1950s,” Braden said.
Whoa. Slow down. Who is examining the health impact of these fossil-fuel-burning plants on Austinites? Didn’t Mayor Gus Garcia and his council remove East Austin fossil fuel facilities over health concerns years ago? Shouldn’t we make sure we are not poisoning our neighbors with these illness-producing power plants before we spend public money on more of them?
And what about community input? “Austin Energy says they conducted three public information sessions, including one at Decker Middle School,” Guinn reported. But Stephanie Chavez Noell of Parents’ Climate Community said, “I called Decker Middle School before the meeting, and they didn’t know anything about the info sessions.” Electric Utility Commissioners Braden and Kaiba White agree that Austin Energy is rushing this peaker proposal.
Now word on the street is that the utility wants to request a closed-door city council session and a blank check. Estimates run from $700 million to $1 billion of our tax dollars. This equipment is hard to find. Supply chains make it worse so it could be four to seven years before the cow pie cooks. Hold on a West Texas minute.
Austin Energy officials say gas peakers are necessary because they’re reliable. But during Winter Storm Uri, didn’t gas supplies freeze up — while renewables and battery storage kept running? And aren’t renewable-powered batteries healthier, cheaper, faster to procure, and quicker to deploy? What if the Austin City Council — acting in the interest of the health, safety and finances of all Austinites — paused this rush and commissioned an independent health, economic and environmental justice study first?
And hey, howdy, doesn’t Elon Musk, the King Ranch-sized manufacturer of large-scale energy storage battery “Megapacks” live right here in Travis County? He and his Gigafactory have every reason to want a safe and reliable grid. We might be able to cut a mighty good deal — right here at home.
Richard Halpin is an award-winning educator, environmentalist, and social entrepreneur since his 1970s “Free the Slow” mental health advocacy days.
