Energy company's move to interest shareholders, environmentalists, even the average Texas security.

It’s been a hundred years since Standard Oil reigned in the west, especially in Texas, but oil is pretty much still king of the energy industries in the Lone Star State. The question is, for how long? Oil extraction techniques like hydraulic fracturing are coming under increasing public scrutiny, and at least one town in Texas is considering banning fracking altogether. But what would happen if we did diversify our energy profile—as Texans and as a nation? Besides being of particular interest to energy company shareholders and a Texas securities attorney who remains watchful of the industry’s moves, such a change could have lasting impacts. While some staunch supporters of the good ole boys’ network of drills crisscrossing the face of the west say it will never happen, others—innovators, environmentalists, and companies like this wave energy technology company– claim that it’s not only a matter of time, it’s a matter of life and death and the survival of our civilization.

Big time (and longstanding) companies like Shell Oil who have a deep interest (literally) in Texas say it can never catch on, but others aren’t so sure. Even now there are rumors of plans to build the state’s largest wind farm off of Interstate-27 near Canyon, south of Amarillo, Texas, which would nearly double the state’s wind energy production. The Sweetwater Wind Farm near Interstate-20 already employs more than 200 wind turbines, the energy output from which is under a 20-year purchase agreement from with San Antonio’s CPS Energy. A knowledgeable Texas securities attorney like Douglas Shumway knows that the time may be ripe in Texas for a change of energy production technologies.

Ocean Power Technologies, then, is of particular interest to Texans, who claim access to the sea through the Gulf of Mexico. Harvesting wave energy power is considered to be a clean industry like wind power, with little of the waste that fracking produces. And OPT has elected a new director to its board who has experience internationally in the energy sector, including” commercial and technical experience in the power industry.” Stakeholders in OPT and a new wave of Texas energy production alike might be interested to see where the new board member of OPT will direct the company. A Texas securities attorney like Shumway knows that change in leadership can indicate shifts in a company’s ability to gain market footholds and future plans and performance.

OPT is headquartered in New Jersey, but its pioneering techniques in harnessing the power of “ocean wave resources to generate reliable and clean and environmentally-beneficial electricity” hold promise for almost any state that has access to a seaboard. Texas, in particular, may be ready soon enough for a shift that moves the energy industry away from controversial technologies like fracking, into more palatable ones that utilize “modular ocean-going buoys that capture and convert predictable wave energy,” for example. For a growing company like OPT, having the counsel of a Texas securities attorney before moving into the Lone Star energy market would be a good idea, and it sounds like their choice in the new Board of Directors member is savvy enough to know that.