POWER TALK
TAKE CENSUS PRECAUTIONS
The general rule is to never give strangers your personal information. But assisting officials in getting an accurate 2010 U.S. Census Bureau count is an important exception. More than 140,000 census workers are charged with counting every person in the United States. The first step is a survey that household residents will receive in March. If the surveys aren’t returned, residents will be telephoned or visited by census workers. The goal is to gather information—such as name, age, gender and race—about each person living at each address.
It’s important that each area’s population is accurately recorded. More than $435 billion in federal funds are distributed across the U.S. every year based on the population count. In addition, congressional redistricting hinges on decennial figures. All census information collected, including addresses, is confidential and protected by law.
So how can you tell if you are talking to a legitimate census worker and not a con artist? Use these guidelines from the Better Business Bureau:
If it’s a U.S. census worker knocking on your door, he or she will be wearing a badge and carrying a Census Bureau canvas bag, a confidentiality notice and a computer equipped with GPS software to reduce the number of geographic coding errors created by using paper maps. Ask to see the individual’s identification and badge before answering any questions.
While the Census Bureau might ask for basic financial information, such as a salary range, it will not ask for Social Security, bank account or credit card numbers. Census workers do not solicit donations.
Census workers will not contact you by e-mail, so be on the lookout for e-mail scams in which someone claims to represent the Census Bureau. Never click on a link or open any attachments in an e-mail that are supposedly from the Census Bureau.
For more information on the census and advice on avoiding identity theft and fraud, visit www.bbb.org and www.census.gov.
MONEY FLOWING TO TEXAS
ETEC Receives Renewable Bonds
East Texas Electric Cooperative’s plans to construct a biomass peaking plant in Woodville and a hydroelectric plant on Lake Livingston have been bolstered by a $65 million allocation in federal clean renewable energy bonds.
Manager Edd Hargett said the generating cooperative is seeking new sources of power because it will need to replace wholesale power contracts that expire in 2014.
Some $40 million in bonds will go toward building the Woodville plant, which has a total budget of $190 million. It will be capable of generating up to 50 megawatts of energy from biomass, primarily using wood chips and forest waste from within 50 miles of the plant. Construction is scheduled to be completed by 2014.
The hydroelectric plant should begin delivering power in early 2013.
The electric distribution co-ops using power from ETEC are Bowie-Cass, Cherokee County, Deep East Texas, Houston County, Jasper-Newton, Panola-Harrison, Rusk County, Sam Houston, Upshur Rural and Wood County.
Golden Spread EC and CoServ Electric To Upgrade Grids
Two Texas electric cooperatives are in line to receive more than $37 million in “smart” grid grants from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Golden Spread Electric Cooperative, a generation and transmission co-op based in Amarillo, will receive $19.9 million; and CoServ Electric, a distribution co-op based in Corinth, will receive $17.2 million.
The money is contingent on the co-ops complying with the DOE’s timetable for making grid improvements.
Golden Spread will use its grant funds to improve its reliability of service and lower the cost of electricity by reducing the need for additional power plants.
More specifically, Golden Spread and its 16 distribution affiliates will use the money for advanced hardware and software capable of providing cooperatives with real-time information on the status of the electrical system.
The CoServ Electric project includes integrated components consisting of smart meters, a two-way communication network and computer systems dedicated to distributing accurate information about electricity consumption. The data will go to CoServ, its generation and transmission power provider and its members.
HAPPENINGS
Not many people can say they’ve seen a Whooping Crane, one of nature’s most magnificent, and endangered, birds once on the brink of extinction. The world’s last natural wild flock of Whooping Cranes winters on and around the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge north of Corpus Christi. Binoculars aren’t always required to see North America’s tallest flying birds that stand nearly 5 feet tall with a 7-foot wingspan. But if you want extra help spotting one, make plans to attend the Whooping Crane Festival, set for February 25-28.
The festival, sponsored by the Port Aransas Chamber of Commerce Tourist and Convention Bureau, offers crane-watching boat tours and additional boat and bus tours that introduce visitors to the nature-rich Gulf Coast area and an abundance of other birds.
For more information about the festival, including early registration fees, call 1-800-452-6278 or go to www.portaransas.org/cranes.html.
YAUPON CAN PRODUCE A BUZZ
Yaupon’s hidden claim to fame, almost entirely eclipsed in the 20th century, is its potential as a tea, and not just any tea, but one containing caffeine—the dried leaves contain 0.27 percent of the stimulant. Of all the species of holly native to North America, yaupon is the only one known to contain caffeine, and it is the only wild tea in Texas with the stimulant.
—Matt Warnock Turner, Remarkable Plants of Texas: Uncommon Accounts of Our Common Natives, University of Texas Press, 2009
FUTURE TALK
Charging Up Your Car
The country is inundated with convenience stores where customers can gas up, buy a burrito and be on their way. But anyone who purchases one of the electric vehicles coming online in the near future may search in vain on the road for an energy boost. Public electric charging stations are virtually nonexistent.
That has to change, says Bill Ford Jr., executive chairman of Ford Motor Company. “Customers don’t want to be panicked when they get their car about where and when they can recharge their vehicle,” he said recently at a plug-in electric vehicle conference in Detroit. “We have to make it easy for them.”
Several top business leaders have formed the Electrification Coalition, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group that will advocate for policies and actions leading to the mass deployment of electric vehicles, including convenient electric charging stations. In its first act, the coalition released a document called the Electrification Roadmap that sets a lofty goal: By 2040, 75 percent of the light-duty vehicle miles traveled in the U.S. should be electrically powered.
WHO KNEW
Texas first participated in the U.S. census in 1850. At that time, the census counted not only people but also agricultural animals. The state had:
12,364 asses and mules
50,482 working oxen
75,403 horses
99,099 sheep
214,868 milk cows
652,174 other cattle
683,604 swine
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