Latest news with #Austin-area
Axios
7 days ago
- Climate
- Axios
Here's how often lightning strikes in Austin
After multiple storms swept through Austin this week, we're looking at how often lightning strikes around Central Texas. Why it matters: Aside from the immediate danger to people, aircraft and infrastructure, lightning can spark wildfires — and the number of strikes is predicted to increase amid climate change, researchers have found. By the numbers: Texas is one of America's lightning capitals, as it's home to all of the top 10 U.S. counties ranked by lightning strikes per square mile in 2024, per weather data firm Vaisala Xweather. Walker County had about 825 strikes per square mile in 2024; Limestone County had 811; and Madison County had 795. All are along or close to I-45 between Houston and Dallas. Yes, but: Things aren't as scary in Travis County, where there were about 145 strikes per square mile last year. Reality check: Still, that's more than 150,000 strikes in Travis County in 2024. One strike caused a house fire in North Austin this month, per CBS Austin. No one was injured. Austin-area fire departments also responded to at least a pair of house fires sparked by lightning in a single night in March, per KXAN. No injuries were reported in those incidents, either. Between the lines: Texas' lightning hotspot status isn't random — it's more prone to strikes as a result of consistent storms tied to its climate and geography. How it works: Vaisala Xweather's data comes from sensors that use radio waves to detect and triangulate lightning strikes, with a claimed median accuracy of 84 meters (just under 300 feet).
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Bills to kill Austin light rail project die again after missing key legislative deadlines
Two bills that would have sabotaged the city of Austin's multi-billion-dollar light rail project are presumed dead after missing key legislative deadlines. Senate Bill 2519, authored by Republican Sen. Paul Bettencourt of Houston, passed the Senate and a House committee earlier this month. However, the bill was not scheduled for a vote in the Texas House before Sunday's deadline. Similarly, House Bill 3879, filed by Austin-area Republican Rep. Ellen Troxclair, advanced out of committee but was never brought to the full House for a vote. Austin City Council Member Zo Qadri, who represents downtown Austin, said the defeat of the bills was good news and 'means a lot to the people of Austin.' 'With all due respect, if you don't represent Austin, you don't know Austin,' Qadri said in an interview Tuesday. Representatives for Troxclair and Bettencourt did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Council Member Vanessa Fuentes echoed Qadri's sentiments but said she remains cautiously optimistic. That's because the bill could resurface as an amendment to separate legislation that is still under consideration. "A lot can happen in these last few days of the Texas Legislature,' Fuentes told the American-Statesman. The session adjourns on June 2. Austin voters approved Project Connect in 2020 via an ongoing 20% increase to property taxes. Initially, the $7.1 billion plan included 27 miles of light rail along with smaller transportation projects. However, it has since been reduced to less than 10 miles of rail, even as its estimated cost has remained unchanged. The project has seen numerous legal and legislative challenges from critics who have seized on the significant downsizing — and the project's novel funding mechanism. Voters approved the creation of a local government corporation, the Austin Transit Partnership, to plan the project and take on debt to finance it. That debt is intended to be repaid through a transfer of property tax dollars approved by the Austin City Council. However, no debt has yet been issued as the city and the Transit Partnership face lawsuits from a group of local taxpayers and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who argue the financing model violates state law. The Transit Partnership declined to comment on Tuesday. 'The City continues to monitor all legislation and will comply with whatever is passed,' city of Austin spokesperson David Ochsner said in a written statement. This is not the first time Troxclair and Bettencourt attempted to derail the project. Troxclair, a conservative former Austin City Council member who has led the charge to kill Project Connect, filed a similar bill in 2023 that would have forced the city to get voter approval before issuing any debt for the project. It died on a last-minute technicality. The bill Troxclair filed this year also sought to give taxpayers another means to sue the city and halt the collection of property taxes if the scope of a project changes significantly after voter approval. The change in scope has been an issue in lawsuits filed on behalf of local taxpayers by attorneys Rick Fine and Bill Aleshire, a former Travis County tax collector and judge. In a Tuesday statement, Aleshire, Fine, and several plaintiffs involved in the ongoing lawsuits blamed House Speaker Dustin Burrows for the failure of the bills, stating they could not secure his 'blessing' and vowing to continue opposing the advancement of the transit project. 'We hope that the abuse those bills addressed does not happen to other communities in Texas,' the statement said. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Bills to kill Austin light rail project die — again
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Austin-based tech firm chosen for UT-Arlington project on data center cooling dilemma
An Austin tech company is partnering with the University of Texas at Arlington to develop innovative methods for cooling chips in data centers. Accelsius, an Austin-based company focused on two-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling, was selected as a contributor to a federal project looking to develop a hybrid cooling method for use in data centers. Data centers are large facilities housing servers that deliver computing power for essential services, from emergency operations to smartphones. Most data centers use air circulation or liquid cooling systems, which consume significant energy and water, to prevent chips from overheating and enable continuous 24/7 operation. More: OpenAI's Abilene data center secures $11.6B in part thanks to Austin-area investment firm The project, which is under the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy (ARPA-E) larger COOLERCHIPS project, is being led by Dereje Agonafer, a professor at UT-Arlington, with the goal of reducing total cooling energy consumption to less than 5% of a data center's IT load. "The government is actually concerned that as these chips get hotter, the architectures for cooling them won't keep up and therefore will impede progress on AI enablement, development and deployment," Accelsius CEO Josh Claman told the American-Statesman. Claman, who previously worked as an executive at Dell Technologies, launched his startup Accelsius three years ago, just before OpenAI's ChatGPT launched to the world. Claman said data centers have historically operated inefficiently, often shifting the extra energy costs of cooling onto tenants. He added that approximately 40% of the energy required to run these facilities 24/7 is wasted on cooling and overhead. "This was always sort of an issue that was near to my heart. Why can't we do this more efficiently?" Claman said. "Air is a terrible transport of heat, everyone knows that. If you have a 100 megawatt data center, you're wasting about 40 megawatts on cooling and overhead. That seems absurd. But it's been tolerated." These additional energy costs, the substantial strain on power grids and the significant water usage required to operate and cool data centers have been at the heart of community protests for several years. A recent report by Data Center Watch, a research organization that tracks data center opposition, found that about $64 billion in data center development nationwide has been stalled due to community pushback. More: Hays County residents are fighting a proposed data center. It'll likely be built anyway With water-based cooling, Claman says data centers can open themselves up to leaks and possibly expensive damage. Servers in data centers can be worth upwards of $400,000, meaning a rack can be work $3.5 to $5 million. Claman said Accelsius is looking to create hybrid cooling infrastructure. The company has two products on the market, with its second product, a multirack 250 kilowatt two-phase coolant distribution unit, having launched a few weeks ago and is being provided to UT-Arlington's ARPA-E project. "We're really confident the two-phase, direct-to-chip is going to be the technology that everyone centers on," Claman said. "So it's important that we get that sort of objective third party evaluation and experimentation. We want people to enter this market. We want to develop a global supply chain. We want to develop credibility around this technology. So for us, it was a really natural partnership. We really believe that if we're going to solve this issue around cooling chips, this is the sort of leading technology to get that done." This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin-based Accelsius joins UT-Arlington data center cooling project
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Austin nonprofit to host community technology and arts festival
An Austin-area nonprofit is hosting an interactive festival this week celebrating technology and the arts, with the goal of exposing young Latinas to education and careers in STEM. Latinitas will host its inaugural TechKermés event on Friday, featuring performances, food and interactive activities with local tech companies such as Dell Technologies, Applied Materials, CapMetro, Electronic Arts, NXP Semiconductors and more. "This is part of our community component," Latinitas spokesperson Salwa Yordi told the American-Statesman. This is an opportunity to gather our families, any families in the community, to kick off the summer with us and get to do something different." Founded in 2002, Latinitas aims to empower young girls and communities through "culturally relevant" education. The organization hosts events, like TechKermés and its annual Startup Chica conference, to expose Latino students, especially girls, to careers in science, technology, engineering, arts and math, Yordi said. According to a 2024 report by the Kapor Foundation, one in 10 U.S. workers in technology is Latino, with 5% of executive leadership roles and 3% of tech company board seats held by Latino professionals. The report also found that, despite comprising only 10% of the tech workforce in the U.S., Latinos make up about 11.5% of laid off workers in the industry. That same study found that 78% of Latino students have access to foundational computer science courses in high school, compared with 82% of white students and 89% of Asian students. "The numbers when it comes to Latinas in tech, the percentage is really, really low," Yordi said. "These events give them the opportunity to think of a career that they want to engage with. Also, the digital literacy component, too. It's an opportunity to create an ecosystem where somebody that looks like them, speaks Spanish, talks in their language, shares their work, they could see themselves in tech someday." TechKermés will have interactive activities in robotics, virtual reality, 3D printing, drones and more, as well as five performers from different Latin American countries, Yordi said. When: Noon to 4 p.m. on May 31. Where: H-E-B Eastside Tech Hub at 2416 E. Sixth St. Parking: There will be limited free parking at the H-E-B Eastside Hub on E. Seventh Street. Tickets: The event is free and does not require tickets to attend. Latinitas does have an RSVP link to register for the event, or attendees can simply show up. This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: What to know about Latinitas' tech and arts festival
Business Journals
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Trader Joe's Bee Cave location confirmed
Trader Joe's is opening its fourth Austin-area location in Bee Cave. The fifth appears to be teed up to rise in Cedar Park. This article chronicles the expansion of Trader Joe's and other grocers here.
