Cowboy Who?

Today I’m very excited to officially announce a new addition to the BMOW product lineup: the Mac Sync-inator VGA sync converter. I’ve been talking about this project for months, and it’s been available in small quantities while I gathered customer feedback, but now it’s finally ready for the bright lights and prime time. If you own a classic Macintosh or Apple IIgs computer, and have ever struggled to get it working with a standard VGA monitor, then the Mac Sync-inator is for you.

The Sync-inator is an adapter for connecting Apple video sources (DB-15) to VGA monitors (HD-15), with active sync processing circuitry that sets it apart from typical passive video adapters. There’s a built-in microcontroller that analyzes the incoming sync signals in real-time, automatically selects the best adapter settings, and can optionally reprocess the sync signals into a different format for better compatibility with some VGA monitors. You can even view a debug log of diagnostic and technical information about the video signal, as seen by the Sync-inator. For video format nerds as well as for people who want something that “just works” with minimum hassles, there’s a lot to be excited about here.

Sync-inator Benefits

• Three different sync processing modes, for wider compatibility than other VGA adapters
• Automatic sync mode selection, for easy setup
• Sync activity LEDs for quick troubleshooting feedback
• Serial port output of video signal diagnostic info
• Plus all the other capabilities of standard VGA adapters

 
What is this and why should I care?

In short, the Sync-inator makes it possible to use many types of VGA monitors that previously wouldn’t work with your classic Apple video source due to sync compatibility issues. It also removes much of the frustration that’s typically associated with using passive DIP switch VGA adapters, by using a microcontroller to automatically configure some of the adapter settings. It will do everything that common passive Mac-to-VGA adapters will do, plus more. If you’ve got a monitor that stubbornly refuses to work with your vintage Mac video card, give the Sync-inator a try.

Sync-inator is not a video scaler, and it doesn’t modify the video resolution or colors in the RGB video signal. Only the sync signals are affected.

 
What the heck is sync?

The video signal from your computer or video card contains synchronization information which helps your monitor detect the beginning of each new line and new frame. There are several different ways in which this sync information can be encoded. Some computers only support specific sync methods, and some VGA monitors can only handle specific sync methods. If your monitor can’t handle the sync signals from your computer or video card, then you’ll have a problem, even if the monitor supports the video resolution and frame rate.

In the world of classic Apple computers, the two most common sync methods are composite sync and separate sync. With composite sync, the horizontal and vertical sync information is combined into a single output signal. With separate sync, horizontal and vertical information is transmitted with two distinct sync signals. Some computers can only output composite sync, or can only output separate sync. Some computers output one or the other at different times, depending on which specific video resolution is active. Some computers output both composite sync and separate sync simultaneously.

The Sync-inator is able to convert a composite sync signal into separate horizontal/vertical sync signals, using several different methods. It’s also able to analyze the incoming sync signal and make an educated guess about which conversion method is best, although this choice can be overridden if you prefer a different method.

 
What’s wrong with my computer? Is it even working?

The Sync-inator also has two built-in LEDs for debugging and troubleshooting video problems. If your monitor remains dark and no image appears, the LEDs can provide information to determine if the problem is with the monitor, the computer, the choice of video resolution, or something else. One LED will light whenever a composite sync signal is present, and the other LED will light whenever a separate sync signal is present. If neither LED is lit, then your computer isn’t outputting any video, and you’ll need to troubleshoot the source. If one or more LEDs are lit, but the monitor doesn’t show any image, then you’re likely dealing with some kind of unsupported video mode and will need to troubleshoot the monitor itself.

 
Debug Log

The Mac Sync-inator has a serial port where debug logging information is provided. The debug log is an optional feature, and all the Sync-inator’s capabilities can be used without ever looking at the log. But advanced tech nerds may find the log info interesting. To view the log, you can attach a USB serial cable to the TXD and GND terminals at the edge of the Sync-inator PCB, and set your terminal software’s serial port speed to 57600 bps. The debug log lists the current sync processing mode, including the result of the automatic processing mode’s analysis, as well as the period and frequency of the detected sync signals and other technical information. Here’s an example showing an Apple “Toby” NuBus video card running at 640×480 @ 67 Hz resolution.

* BMOW VGA Mac Sync-inator, v 1.0
sync mode: choose automatically
detecting sync signals...
hsync no
vsync no
csync yes
csync horiz period 28.5 us, freq 35.0 kHz
csync vert period 15.0 ms, freq 66.3 Hz
auto-select: convert csync into hsync and vsync
csync: pulse width 9 20 871, period 142 285 1003

 
Get your Sync-inator Now

For details on the Sync-inator, usage instructions, or to make a purchase, please see the main Sync-inator page at the BMOW web site. I hope this new device will be as useful for you as it has been for me!

NEW YORK—Noting that the former president’s high-profile antics had made it exceedingly difficult to move ahead with the case, sources confirmed Monday that Eric Trump was the only potential juror uninformed enough to serve at his father’s trial. “While the majority of other individuals in the pool were immediately…

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LOS ANGELES—As rumors persist that he may be the next actor to take on the franchise’s lead role, Aaron Taylor-Johnson told reporters Monday that he had been wondering whether buying a tuxedo would be more economical in the long run than renting one for each James Bond film. “I know it’s a big splurge, but if I’m…

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INDIO, CA—In a viral video clip that left fans fawning over the celebrity couple, Travis Kelce reportedly tossed Taylor Swift 50 feet across the festival grounds at Coachella Saturday night. “He picked her up and hurled her like it was nothing,” said 25-year-old Brooke Renny, just one of dozens of festivalgoers who…

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CLEVELAND—In a sign of solidarity to a nearby child-burdened party attempting to eat breakfast in peace at a local IHOP, 43-year-old father Greg Markie reportedly gave a knowing nod Tuesday to another family also dealing with a whiny little shit. “Uh-huh, you too, huh?” the dead-eyed father reportedly mouthed,…

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NEW YORK—Provided with a bullish catalyst as the world was cast into perpetual darkness, brimstone stocks rose Tuesday on news that the Antichrist had ushered in the Age of Eternal Misery. “Common shares of brimstone surged to all-time highs after the Antichrist announced a new era of pestilence and never-ending woe,”…

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A nova of the T Coronae Borealis star system is expected to happen at some point through September, and will make it as bright as the North Star for several days.

(Image credit: Conceptual Image Lab/Goddard Space Flight Center)

This post was written by Alison Green and published on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I am a long-time manager, but promotions are a rarity on my team. When an unexpected opportunity for a promotion arose earlier this year, there were two obvious candidates: Annie and Beth. Annie was more of a star individual contributor than Beth, and also had more experience covering the open position. But Annie can be volatile, and in particular has a history of butting heads with Jane, who would be her direct supervisor in the new role. So I chose to promote Beth, who has better soft skills and an excellent relationship with Jane (they’re good friends outside work). When I gave Annie the bad news, she said that she had determined that she was not a good fit for the role anyway and did not want the “drama” of the higher level position.

Since then, Annie has continued her excellent work and been scrupulously polite. She does, however, avoid Beth and Jane when she can. She has also stopped going “above and beyond.” She no longer volunteers for the hardest assignments when we’re in a pinch, and has opted out of all social gatherings. The gatherings are not technically required, but I do think that they’re important for team-building purposes. I’m disappointed, although not really surprised, that Annie seems to be boycotting them.

The problem is that a tense unhappiness has settled over the rest of the team. General consensus seems to be that I used Annie to cover the position without a promotion and screwed her over by promoting Beth instead because Beth is Jane’s friend. Beth and Annie’s respective relationships with Jane were absolutely a factor in my decision, but Beth is more than qualified for her new role even setting that aside.

Is there any way I can ask Annie to smooth things over with her colleagues? Can I ask her to tell them that she didn’t want the promotion anyway, or at least encourage her to stop boycotting happy hour? Beth does not deserve the team’s extreme lack of enthusiasm during what should be an exciting and celebratory time for her.

The fact that Beth and Jane are good friends outside of work makes this a real clusterfudge — because of course it looks to your team like that’s why Beth got the promotion despite not being strong of a performer as Annie, but also because you really can’t have someone manage their “good friend.” It’s rife for bias and lack of objectivity, and for the appearance of those things.

Even without the other issues, Beth and Jane’s close friendship should have given you serious pause about moving Beth into that role — at least without a very serious conversation about how their relationship would need to change, and assurance from each of them that they agreed and were bought into that, and even then it would be tricky (depending on exactly what “good friends outside of work” means). That doesn’t necessarily mean Annie should have gotten the job instead (volatility and a history of butting heads with Jane might also be prohibitive), but it might mean you needed to look at external candidates.

As for what to do now … don’t ask Annie to tell her coworkers she didn’t want the promotion. Based on her behavior since she said that, it’s unlikely that’s really true (and it’s significant that she only said that after she knew she wasn’t getting it). And don’t ask her to resume coming to optional happy hours; she’s entitled to decide she doesn’t want to socialize outside of work. She’s also entitled to stop going above and beyond — and I suspect that if you really think about it, you can understand why she has: she’s gotten the message that doing that doesn’t pay off, and she’s not in a place where she’s inclined to do extra favors at the moment. That’s fair. None of that means Annie is a saint, or even that you should have promoted her instead. But it does mean that the way you want to handle this isn’t the way to go.

I’m hopeful that you were transparent with Annie’s about your concerns about her volatility and relationship with Jane, enough for her to understand why those things were an obstacle in promoting her. But you’ve still got this Beth/Jane friendship landmine to sort out, not to mention your team’s reaction to everything that went down. Those aren’t problems that Annie created, and it’s not fair to look to her to solve them for you.

The campaign to amend Florida's constitution to protect abortion rights kicked off in Orlando, attracting voters on both sides of the issue. The ballot question needs 60% approval to pass.

(Image credit: Danielle Prieur)

A photograph included in Paul Hester’s “Prisoners of Masculinity” exhibition

The images in Paul Hester’s current exhibition of photographs, Prisoners of Masculinity, are organized by architectural elements that frame and obscure the visual field. Hester’s stunning compositions are marked by moments of surreal, spontaneous insight that pierce the environs within which bodies, and the narratives they enact, are posed. The title of the show suggests normative frameworks that Hester’s photographs seek to disrupt. In these formally rigorous images, there are insinuations, or registers of intense emotion that inflect, irradiate, and unsettle the language of architecture, of the monumental, of photography itself.

Hester’s camera explores lavish and utilitarian spaces: glassed-walled high-rise office buildings, barbershops, street scenes at cafes, or storefront rooms with plate glass windows, interiors and exteriors creating frames within frames. Hester, who studied architecture, has a keen compositional eye for the way space is orchestrated, how we comport ourselves within cathedral-like bank lobbies or mingle in crowds on street corners. Hester often locates the human figure in the field of the architecturally monumental.

A photograph included in Paul Hester’s “Prisoners of Masculinity” exhibition

In one photograph, a man poses, hands clasped behind his back, in front of the Trevi Fountain in Rome. This image includes people, presumably tourists, taking photographs of the fountain. The man is not posing for Hester, but for someone else. Hester reveals to us that his is not the only camera present. Hester’s reference here to photography suggests how we use images to describe the world, what we include and what we exclude, just as architecture encloses the spaces we inhabit, and monuments frame our histories. The man’s dark hair, glasses, and dark coat cut a small but sharp figure against the water of the fountain; he seems to levitate there, almost as if posing in front of a green screen. This modern figure defines itself in sharp contrast to the pale, roiling mythical figures of the fountain, which crowd behind him like storm clouds, as if they might at any moment, despite their furious energy set in stone, disappear. In a companion photograph, the dark silhouette of a boy, frail and anonymous, reads like a cipher in front of the incandescent, rushing Waterwall at Williams (formerly Transco) Tower in Houston. The seething force of the monumental rises up and renders us as shadows. But when you look closely, the silhouette of the boy poses defiantly.

Hester’s photographs explore the force and pathos of a world that humans have designed. This includes the body itself as it is “built,” and its power to frame itself and others. “We are seduced by posture,” “We are seduced by gender,” as the texts printed on two of Hester’s photographs remind us. Alongside images of muscular men, some seemingly taken during bodybuilding competitions, Hester shows us women wrapped in tissue paper, their breasts exposed, or women who have been “caged” by markings on the image. 

A photograph included in Paul Hester’s “Prisoners of Masculinity” exhibition

In several photographs, Hester uses the anatomy of animals and humans to create a compositional architecture: The shoulder and truncated head of a dog perch atop the front seat of a car, a young man at the wheel turns his partially obscured face to the camera, a ringed feminine hand holds the leg of the dog. In another image, an alligator wrestler lies on his back, clutching a supine alligator. In one photo, two women, only their torsos visible, manicure the tail of a bull, its testicles prominent below. Their bare arms stand out in striking contrast to the animal’s hide. There is a strange, even grotesque, intimacy in these photographs, the bulk and heft and tactile surfaces of parts of bodies framing one another. Grotesque in Donna Haraway’s sense of the “monstrous” as chimerical, as transforming and transcending the normative.

A photograph included in Paul Hester’s “Prisoners of Masculinity” exhibition

Hester imagines both a meditative and dramatic relation between people and the material structures that enclose them. At times, figures seem to reside intimately within grand architectural enunciations of space: The Republic Bank in Houston, where two female employees, one white, one Black, work at their desks as a towering wall of interior windows rises behind them like giant tablets of empty space. Through these windows, we see a succession of walls of interior windows; a proliferation of arches and partitions. The women seem quietly focused and active within this bewilderingly and expansively patterned space.

A photograph included in Paul Hester’s “Prisoners of Masculinity” exhibition

In another image, a Black, male, muscular body tilts, balancing himself on one foot as he reaches toward an immense glass wall scored with the hard lines of giant window frames within the interior of a highrise somewhere in Houston. The enormous boxed frames, against the blinding light of the sky, yield bars of heavy shadows that sprawl across the floor of the room. This photo contains the printed text, “Where Is Your Illusion of Control.”. Is this text interrogating the naked figure reaching toward something out beyond the glass on the distant horizon, or does it suggest the ephemerality of the space itself, the illusion of both permanence and impermanence suggested by the design that attempts to contain the figure?

Paul Hester, “Quinceañera, Espinazo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico”

In Hester’s photograph Quinceañera, Espinazo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, a group of young girls pose in laced frocks as an old man brings in a beheaded “fatted calf,” presumably to be roasted for the festive occasion. An open door neatly divides the composition into two frames, separating the girls from the old man approaching the doorway. The division heightens the drama. Two of the girls seem to wait expectantly, perhaps hearing someone entering the room but not yet able to see the gruesome offering. The old man’s lost look belies the deadly force of the sacrificial gift he offers to them, death located within our rituals marking the passage of time. The girls are just beginning to break out of their poses; perhaps they sense some dark, unbidden thing arriving.

Paul Hester, “Fannin’s Men“

While the name of Hester’s photograph, Fannin’s Men, conjures the ghosts of those executed at Goliad, the image itself captures a moment that redefines the parameters of the monumental. A beautiful young Tejano man, shirtless, wearing jeans and cowboy boots that accentuate his lithe torso, leads a horse while holding the hand of a young Tejano boy, himself dressed sharply in shirt, jeans, and boots; they are the original vaqueros. The Goliad monument, sphinx-like, looks away behind them. Hester composes the photograph perspectively so that the figures and the monument are the same size and on the same plane. The man leads the horse and the boy toward the viewer, illuminated by the camera’s flash, while the darkened monument behind, dumb with its riddle, seems almost unmoored, floating in space. In this photo, Hester subtly captures a landscape where architecturally monumental traces of the violence used to create nations, and frame bodies historically and politically, are left behind. Here, the living body becomes a counter-monument, perhaps a romantic one. Is the only way of demythologizing, of laying to rest, the “martyred,” “heroic,” dominant white body, to counter it with the composed, romanticized brown body? And yet, does the man in the photograph not have the power to inspire and subvert architecturally and photographically defined space? He has his own story, his own relation with the land. In this striking photograph, the brown body, mortified in contested border spaces, glows. The marker echoes the head of the horse so that the man seems to be leading them both as they move out toward a broader historical terrain. The opacity of history now lit up by the young man’s physical presence, his bright breast cleaving the darkness.

The post Review: Paul Hester’s “Prisoners of Masculinity” at Andrew Durham Gallery, Houston appeared first on Glasstire.

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Hovertext:
Written after enjoying Children's Fantasy Literature, by Levy and Menlesohn.

Birds have it going on. Many of these winged dinosaurs delight us with their song and brilliant plumage. Migratory birds travel thousands of miles in a display of endurance that would make an Olympic athlete gasp.

We inquire about these daunting migrations and how birds can fly for days without rest. And what can we do to save disappearing species? Will digital tracking technology help? Plus, how 19th century bird-lovers, appalled by feathered hats, started the modern conservation movement.

Guests:

Scott Weidensaul – Ornithologist and naturalist and author of “A World on the Wing: the Global Odyssey of Migratory Birds.”

Kassandra Ford – Doctoral candidate in evolutionary biology at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Michelle Nijhuis – Science journalist and author of “Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction.”

Originally aired May 10, 2021

Featuring music by Dewey Dellay and Jun Miyake

You can get early access to ad-free versions of every episode by joining us on Patreon. Thanks for your support!

Big Picture Science is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Please contact advertising@airwavemedia.com to inquire about advertising on Big Picture Science.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Actually, Test is under Sign ...

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Hovertext:
That one guy is actually a robot designed to look like a human, so it's cool.

New comic!

Maybe instead of a restaurant we can just sell admission to see the world's most well-fed shark.

SILVER SPRING, MD—Holding their fingers up under their noses, the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday that their fingers smelled like orange after evaluating some oranges earlier. “Smell them,” said FDA commissioner Robert M. Califf, who held his hands outstretched so that reporters could confirm the…

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Three men who were stranded on an uninhabited island for over a week were rescued after spelling out “help” on the beach using palm leaves, helping the U.S. Coast Guard to spot them. What do you think?

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MINNEAPOLIS—Updating its packaging to include new USDA-mandated guidelines for safe yogurt preparation, Yoplait began warning Tuesday that its products must reach a minimum internal temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit prior to consumption. “Contents must be heated to 165°F/74°C or higher to destroy the bacteria…

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WASHINGTON—Calling an emergency session around 12:39 a.m., Congress quickly approved a bill for a national night-light Monday after waking up from a scary dream. “While we’re definitely not afraid of the dark, keeping a light on somewhere in the United States will be a source of comfort and make it easier to fall…

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U.S. Senator Ted Cruz is facing yet another complaint to the Federal Elections Commission that claims he has “brazenly” violated federal campaign finance laws through his podcast deal with one of the nation’s largest media conglomerates. 

Cruz struck a deal in 2022 with San Antonio-based radio giant iHeartMedia to pay for the production, marketing, and distribution of his “Verdict” podcast, where he pontificates about various right-wing grievances several times a week. The sweetheart arrangement has raised myriad ethics concerns ever since. 

The complaint, filed Tuesday, comes amid revelations that iHeartMedia has sent over $630,000 to a super PAC backing Cruz’s 2024 reelection campaign over the past year. That’s about a third of the PAC’s total cash haul. 

The company has told reporters that these payments were for “digital revenue” from the podcast’s advertising sales, while referring further questions to Cruz and the super PAC. Neither the senator, nor his affiliated super PAC, Truth & Courage PAC, have provided any further details. 

But Campaign Legal Center and End Citizens United allege in their complaint that Cruz “requested or directed” iHeartMedia to pay the PAC in violation of federal election laws that prohibit candidates from raising, directing, or spending “soft money” that exceeds contribution limits and from coordinating directly with outside super PACs. 

Campaign Legal Center, a Washington-based campaign finance watchdog, has persistently bird-dogged Cruz over a series of potential ethics, campaign finance, and election law violations. End Citizens United is a Democratic PAC that supports campaign finance reform and aligned candidates; the group has endorsed Cruz’s Democratic opponent Colin Allred. 

“The terms of iHeartMedia’s podcast agreement with Cruz are not public, and the company’s recent comments do not explain why it is sending money derived from ad sales associated with Cruz’s podcast to a super PAC supporting Cruz’s 2024 reelection campaign,” the complaint states.  “The most reasonable and logical inference to be drawn from these circumstances, however, is that Cruz requested or directed, and iHeartMedia agreed, that iHeartMedia would transmit these funds to TCP, which then would use the funds to support Cruz’s candidacy.”

The Campaign Legal Center previously prompted the Senate Ethics Committee to investigate whether Cruz violated Senate ethics rules that prohibit taking gifts from a registered lobbyist or accepting honoraria for event appearances or speeches. That investigation was ultimately closed after both Cruz and iHeartMedia said the senator personally makes no money through the deal and volunteers his time to host episodes several times a week. 

Cruz and Truth & Courage PAC have ducked questions about who directed iHeartMedia to send money to the super PAC. Pressed by a reporter in a recent TV news interview, Cruz attacked the media for “parroting” left-wing Democratic attacks and pointed to the prior Senate Ethics Committee’s investigation that found no wrongdoing. That probe, however, did not involve the company’s payments to the Cruz-aligned super PAC. 

Cruz claims he does the podcast as a service to the public by pulling back the curtain on corruption in Washington. “Because the media doesn’t report on news, and I do the podcast to talk to the people of Texas about the issues that matter,” Cruz said. 

The Texas senator—a key player in conservatives’ pursuit of unlimited, unregulated money in federal politics—is no naif on these matters and, in fact, has earned a reputation as a “blatantly cynical” FEC troll who methodically seeks to exploit loopholes in the gray areas of federal election law. In his 2018 Senate campaign, he successfully challenged federal regulations that restrict how much of candidates’ personal loans to their campaigns can be repaid by donors. He has also been accused of blatantly testing (or outright violating) laws that prohibit super PAC coordination and using campaign funds for personal use or gain. In 2021, he was accused of executing an illegal scheme to funnel campaign cash through a shadow entity to buy copies of his latest book. 

Cruz may be likely trying to game the system again with his podcast deal. As the Daily Beast reported, some campaign finance experts say Cruz is technically not “raising” money for the super PAC but instead “earning” money for it—and PACs aren’t prohibited by law from making outside revenue. What’s unique about the iHeart podcast arrangement, the report says, is that it “raises a prospect entirely unique to Cruz: that a super PAC can essentially moonlight as a media company.” 

“What seems to be going on here is he’s treating this political group not through the standard fundraising that it would do, but instead, basically treating it as business, and that it’s making money off of his podcast, as if it were just making money off of selling T-shirts,” one campaign finance watchdog told the Daily Beast. 

Whether Cruz violated federal election laws depends largely on details that remain unknown—including who the actual parties in the podcast contract are and what role Cruz played in directing payment to the PAC.

The complaint asks the FEC to investigate specifics of the podcast deal and PAC payments. The federal agency, however, has long been mired in political dysfunction and discord that effectively make it incapable of policing even the most basic tenets of election law. 

 “The odds of the FEC sanctioning him for this are astronomically low,” Brett Kappel, a campaign finance attorney at a Washington law firm, told the Daily Beast, noting that one of the Republican commissioners appointed by Trump was previously Cruz’s chief counsel in the Senate. 

Cruz’s podcast deal has also raised concerns of undue influence that go beyond the super PAC payments: iHeartMedia, which owns hundreds of radio stations across the country, spends millions of dollars lobbying lawmakers each year on a range of issues including policies under the jurisdiction of the Senate Commerce Committee—on which Cruz serves as the ranking Republican member.  Cruz has also received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from lobbyists who represent iHeartMedia, the Daily Beast found. 

Two months after iHeartMedia began sending payments to the Truth & Courage PAC last year, Cruz announced he was sponsoring a bill that would prohibit automakers from removing AM radio from certain cars. iHeartRadio owns over 250 AM radio stations.

While trying to pass his bill on the Senate floor last year, Cruz praised AM radio as an “oasis for conservative speech,” citing influential talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin. Their dominance of those airwaves helped give rise to Cruz’s career—first as a politician, now as a podcaster.

The post Is Ted Cruz’s Podcast PAC Payoff Scheme Illegal? appeared first on The Texas Observer.

A chemical company, Avina Clean Hydrogen Inc., has purchased the last available water supply from the Nueces River of South Texas, raising concerns as reservoirs dwindle and drought persists. 

Avina’s Nueces Green Ammonia plant plans to separate the hydrogen from water, convert it to ammonia and export it as a high-tech fuel alternative to oil and gas. It’s one of several such projects currently proposed in Texas, driven by federal subsidies. Governments and scientists say this technology plays an important role in the transition away from fossil fuels. 

But officials in the nearby city of Corpus Christi have warned that the project could threaten the water supply for more than 600,000 regional customers. 

“Increased water drawn solely from the Nueces River system could dramatically increase the potential for scarcity,” wrote Corpus Christi’s director of intergovernmental relations, Ryan Skrobarczyk, in a March 1 memo to state lawmakers, first reported by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. “A new large-volume user of the Nueces River will require extensive and exact monitoring to avoid increased drought restrictions.”

Over the last decade, Corpus Christi stretched its water supply to its limits, selling vast volumes of Nueces River water to a string of major industrial users, hoping to meet the new demand with several large desalination plants. 

But those plants still haven’t materialized. Meanwhile, the new industrial customers have ramped up operations while a multi-year drought bore down. Local residents have been under water-use restrictions for more than 600 days as reservoirs have fallen below one-third full.

Although Corpus Christi holds rights to the vast majority of Nueces River water, it doesn’t hold them all, as it was recently reminded. The only other significant right belongs to the Nueces County Water Improvement and Control District #3, which serves the towns of Calallen and Robstown. It has rights from 1909 that were originally intended to flood crop fields and haven’t been used in decades. 

That’s where Avina found the means to purchase 5.5 million gallons of treated Nueces River water per day—enough for all 38,000 residents of Calallen and Robstown to each flush their toilets 90 times daily—for the next 25 years. 

“Do I want them there? No. But I can’t be biased,” said Marcos Alaniz, general manager of the Nueces County Water Control and Improvement District #3 outside of Corpus Christi. “I don’t have a right to tell somebody that I cannot feed them water.”  

He cited rules from the Texas Public Utility Commission that listed five reasons why water providers may refuse service. Compromising the regional supply wasn’t among them. 

“It’s just the fact that we’re pulling more out of the reservoirs than we’re putting in. But that’s not for me to say,” Alaniz said. 

A spokesperson for Avina in New Jersey, Karen White, said the company “takes seriously the water/energy nexus and is engineering the most water conscious plant design, opting for dry cooling, reuse and reduction wherever possible.”

In a March 6 email to Corpus Christi City Council, city manager Peter Zanoni warned the Avina project could increase water prices for all municipal water users. 

“The loss of millions of gallons of water a day will have an impact on our water supplies. To backfill that loss will potentially result in rate impacts to all [Corpus Christi Water] customers,” Zanoni wrote.

The city of Corpus Christi and its water department declined to answer questions. 

Avina is one of at least 30 hydrogen and ammonia projects currently proposed in Texas, according to data from the Environmental Integrity Project, following federal legislation that laid out financial incentives for fossil fuel alternatives, aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gasses.

“In the future, hydrogen will be used to replace diesel,” said Joe Powell, director of the Energy Transition Institute at the University of Houston and a former chief scientist at Shell. “I see it as a good jobs transition opportunity for this [Houston] region to be securing its place in the future.”

Most of those projects produce hydrogen the old-fashioned way, from natural gas, but incorporate new measures to capture the high volume of carbon emissions and inject them underground for disposal instead of releasing them into the air. 

Ten of the projects use a method called electrolysis that doesn’t directly involve oil or gas. Instead, it uses a large volume of water and a tremendous amount of electricity to separate the hydrogen from water molecules. When powered by clean energy, the process releases no carbon emissions. 

The technology isn’t new, but it wasn’t considered economically feasible until the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 laid out steep federal subsidies for hydrogen projects. 

One such project in North Texas plans to build 1.4 gigawatts of wind and solar power generation and pump 500,000 gallons of groundwater per day to produce 200,000 kilograms of hydrogen for fuel. Another project on Matagorda Bay will use water to produce hydrogen for so-called “eFuels.” Avina also plans a second electrolysis plant in South Texas to fuel furnaces for steel production. 

But there’s a hangup. Hydrogen gas is nearly impossible to transport. It needs to be liquified at about -500 Farhenheit and then held at that temperature. 

So instead, scientists devised an alternative: convert the hydrogen to ammonia (a stable liquid made of hydrogen and nitrogen), ship it overseas then re-convert to hydrogen. It’s an inefficient process. Up to 40 percent of the original energy input is lost in the production, conversion and re-conversion of the hydrogen, said Hugh Daigle, an associate professor of petroleum engineering at the University of Texas who has studied the hydrogen economy. But, it produces a carbonless fuel that can power heavy vehicles without harmful emissions. 

“To make one molecule of H2 it takes 1 molecule of water,” Daigle said. 

If developed at scale, he said, “that is going to take a lot of water.”

The Avina spokesperson, White, said the company selected its Nueces County location based on its proximity to renewable energy resources (wind farms cover millions of acres in South Texas) and its relay access to the Port of Corpus Christi. 

Federal tax incentives require electrolysis projects to run on renewable energy, with extra benefits if the energy projects are new. White said Avina’s Nueces ammonia plant will be powered by 3.5 gigawatts of new renewable power projects, but those contracts haven’t been finalized yet. 

White did not say how much water the facility planned to use once fully constructed. 

The news of another water-intensive industrial project in the region surprised Encarnacion Serna, a retired chemical engineer who spent his career in local refineries. 

“They keep bringing in more and more industry and there is no water,” he said. “It’s a horrible disaster just waiting to happen.” 

Serna, 72, has nothing against the industrial sector. He raised his family while working in these plants, including five years at ExxonMobil, 15 years at Occidental Chemical and three years at Air Liquide. 

But, he said, it’s gone too far. He listed the recent, major additions to the region’s waterside industrial sector: Cheniere LNG, Voestalpine steel, Chemours chemicals and a trio of massive new oil export terminals, among others. One new plastics plant by ExxonMobil and the Saudi Basic Industries Corp. has contracts to use up to 25 million gallons of treated water per day. 

All this growth was supposed to be supported by the development of new seawater desalination plants. But while the industrial customers are now operating, plans for those desalination plants have floundered, mired in years of delays. 

“They spent millions of dollars pushing desalination and all the money went to lawyers, permitting and public relations,” Serna said. “The idiots sold water they didn’t have.”

Avina plans to produce 3.2 billion gallons of ammonia per year at the Nueces County plant, according to its application. Serna calculated how much hydrogen that would require, and how much water in turn, coming up with 9.5 million gallons per day—almost twice Avina’s contracted water supply. 

Alaniz, manager of WCID #3, said the company will put in groundwater wells to make up the difference. 

WCID #3’s 1909 water rights from the Nueces River allow for 10.5 million gallons per day. Originally, that water was meant for crop irrigation, but over time the farm fields turned into neighborhoods, which use much less water. Still, WCID #3 held onto its rights. 

“This will be our first industrial customer,” Alaniz said. “Until you can figure out how we can get more water, it’s probably my last.” 

A previous version of this article incorrectly described Avina as a chemical company from India. Avina is headquartered in New Jersey. 

The post Water Scarcity and Clean Energy Collide in South Texas appeared first on The Texas Observer.

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