Part of the 2023 Texas Science Festival, this panel discussion featured Erika Bierschbach (Austin Energy), Mose Buchele (KUT News), Dev Niyogi (UT Austin), and Alison Silverstein (Independent Consultant). 

As blackouts associated with 2021’s Winter Storm Uri proved, Texas and its grid face pressures unlike anywhere else in the country. Come learn about how the energy system in Texas works and explore how the climate crisis is changing (and may keep changing) power generation, transmission and consumption in our Texas homes, schools and offices. This event is a co-production with KUT News and its award-winning podcast “The Disconnect” and Planet Texas 2050. 

There are approximately 2 gigawatts (GW) of cryptocurrency load capacity within the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT). As of mid-2022, ERCOT had 33 GW of cryptocurrency mining in its interconnection queue. The potential increase in power demand was so high that ERCOT established a new interim process and a special task force for determining new rules for interconnecting large loads, such as cryptocurrency mining operations.

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At this year's Mitchell Sustainability Symposium, we look toward the future. UT experts will come together to share their work imagining and achieving the future of campus sustainability, drawing on the UT Strategic Plan. We will explore the future of sustainability in the curriculum, the future of our place in the city, the future of energy, and more.

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The panelists in Making in Systems visualize, translate, and study systems and networks through living sculpture, recycled materials, coded environments, and hydrology mapping. They materially and conceptually engage with systems of water, historical exploitation of people and landscape, and recycling, as well as the collapse of systems. Hosted by Planet Texas 2050 and the College of Fine Arts.