The Texas A&M University School of Law's Journal of Real Property Law hosted its third annual symposium on November 15, 2013 in Ft. Worth, TX.

Practitioners and attorneys from across the state attended the Wind Farming: Obstacles to Planning and Development symposium. Topics discussed during the symposium included issues faced by wind energy developers, regulation of wind farms and multi-party negotiations of wind energy leases.

John Pappas, Interim Director of the Texas A&M Energy Institute and Director of the Texas A&M Wind Energy Center provided the keynote address discussing the challenges and misperceptions associated with off-shore wind farming.

The symposium closed with a roundtable conversation which included all of the presenters from the symposium.

The upcoming edition of the Texas A&M University School of Law Journal of Real Property publication will feature an article from each presenter.

The Texas A&M Journal of Real Property Law is a scholarly publication dedicated to promoting academic discussions of real property law. This journal is published annually in the spring and is comprised of essays highlighted in the annual symposium; articles by scholars and legal practitioners; and notes and comments by students.

By Katie Heinrich, Fall 2013 issue of tx H2O

Over the past three years, Texas A&M University has built six new buildings across campus that employ water harvesting and reuse systems. These new facilities are not only essential to the success of their colleges and departments, but are also playing a vital role in fulfilling one of the state's dire needs - water conservation.

By integrating rainwater harvesting (RWH) and air-conditioner (AC) condensate reuse methods into new campus buildings, along with implementing other resource-efficient initiatives, Texas A&M is continuing to improve conservation and sustainability on the College Station campus.

RWH involves the capture of rainwater. AC condensate reuse collects condensate that forms on air conditioning coils. These reuse technologies are used for landscape irrigation on campus, said Texas A&M Architect Lilia Gonzales.

Jim Riley, executive director of Texas A&M's Utilities & Energy Services Department, said the largest sector of Texas A&M's water consumption - more than 35 percent - comes from water evaporation at Texas A&M's four utility plants. The consumption occurs in the plant cooling towers and is a direct result of evaporative cooling used to absorb heat from most of the buildings on campus.

"When you have 19 million square feet of air-conditioned space to keep cool on a hot summer day, there will be more than 4 million gallons of water evaporated from all of the cooling towers in the four utility plants on campus," Riley said.

Landscape irrigation around campus makes up another 30 percent of Texas A&M's water use. All other domestic uses, such as water used in residence halls, for food preparation and in laboratories, account for another one-third of total consumption.

The university has its own water wells and manages its own water production, transmission, treatment, distribution and quality control and operates separately from the Bryan and College Station water systems. The university has seven water wells, which can produce up to 14 million gallons per day, he said.

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In 2013 the Railroad Commission received 35 applications for natural gas refueling stations. Grand openings of public stations in El Campo and San Antonio are slated for January 2014.

Click here for maps of refueling outlets in Texas.

IRVING, TEXAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--December 12, 2013

The world will require all forms of energy over the next quarter century to meet a greater than one-third increase in demand that will be driven by population growth, improved living standards and expanded urbanization, according to ExxonMobil's Outlook for Energy: A View to 2040, which was released today.

"Understanding global energy trends is absolutely critical for effective energy policy," said Rex W. Tillerson, chairman and chief executive officer of Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM). "The world depends on safe, reliable and affordable energy development to support economic growth and our modern way of life."

In its annual forecast, ExxonMobil projects that future energy needs - expected to be about 35 percent higher in 2040 than 2010 - will be supported by more efficient energy-saving practices and technologies, increased use of less-carbon-intensive fuels such as natural gas, nuclear and renewables as well as the continued development of technology advances to develop new energy sources. Without gains in efficiency, global energy demand could have risen by more than 100 percent.

Driving increased energy demand is anticipated population growth that will reach nearly 9 billion in 2040 from about 7 billion today, and a projected doubling of the global economy - at an annual growth rate of nearly 3 percent - largely in the developing world where rising living standards will continue to lift millions of people out of poverty.

The outlook projects that oil and natural gas will continue to meet about 60 percent of energy needs by 2040. Liquid fuels - gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and fuel oil - will remain the energy of choice for most types of transportation because they offer a unique combination of affordability, availability, portability and high energy density.

An expected 25 percent increase in demand for oil, led by increased commercial transportation activity, will be met through technology advances that enable deep-water production and development of oil sands and tight oil.

Natural gas will continue to be the fastest-growing major fuel source as demand increases by about 65 percent. Natural gas is projected to account for more than one quarter of all global energy needs by 2040 and it is expected to overtake coal as the largest source of electricity.

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The Outlook for Energy is ExxonMobil's long-term global view of energy demand and supply and its findings help guide investments that underpin the company's business strategy. The outlook is developed by examining energy supply and demand trends in more than 100 countries and 15 demand sectors, such as transportation, industrial and power generation. Twenty different types of energy that will be available to future consumers are evaluated while taking into account assessments of future technologies, government policies and cross-border trade flows.

With a generous donation of $40,000 from ConocoPhillips, the Energy Institute awarded eight fellowships to support outstanding graduate students doing energy research. Over 60 applicants from numerous departments were nominated for this competitive award. The award recipients are known as "Energy Institute Fellows."

Each month, a Fellow will be featured in the highlights section of News Briefs.  This month's featured Fellow is Naeem Farokhnia, a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering.

Naeem's research project is entitled "Power Grid's Power Quality Improvement Using Solar Panels Directly Connected to the Distribution Systems." For a brief abstract of Naeem's research, click here.  

To see the complete listing of EI Fellows, visit our web site at http://energy.tamu.edu/.