Leave it to the Beaver

Buc-ee’s will pump up Austin area with world’s largest convenience store

The new store in Luling will boast more than 75,000 square feet.

Courtesy of Buc-ee's

The saga of the world’s biggest convenience store rolls on.

For now, the largest convenience store in the world is the Buc-ee’s location in New Braunfels, measuring a little over 66,000 square feet. But Buc-ee’s recently revealed that a new store coming to Sevierville, Tennessee, would take that title. However, it wasn’t long before Buc-ee’s topped itself by announcing the world’s largest convenience store would be a Buc-ee’s planned for Johnstown, Colorado.

Later this year, though, Buc-ee’s will start building what it now says will be its largest store — and, therefore, the world’s largest convenience store — in its home state of Texas. The iconic Lake Jackson-based chain plans to replace its existing store in Luling, nearly 45 miles southeast of Austin, with a more than 75,000-square-foot location. The new Luling store will beat the new Tennessee and Colorado stores by roughly 1,000 square feet.

Located at 10070 I-10, the new Buc-ee’s in Luling will go up next to the existing store. It will feature 120 gas nozzles at 60 pumps. The current store, built in 2003, was the chain’s first “family travel center.”

The bigger Luling store will employ more than 200 people.

In a June 8 news release, Stan Beard, director of real estate at Buc-ee’s, lauded co-founders Arch “Beaver” Aplin III and Don Wasek for their “gumption to change the industry” by opening the company’s first “family travel center” mega-store in Luling, a town of nearly 6,000 residents situated in Caldwell and Guadalupe counties.

“Since that time, Buc-ee’s has grown into an iconic Texas brand that now shares our Texas pride with new stores throughout the Southeast and West,” Beard says. “We are humbled to have this opportunity to strengthen our roots in Texas and will continue to exceed our customers’ expectations every chance we get.”

Founded in 1982, Buc-ee’s operates 35 stores in Texas and eight stores in other states. The chain is known for its sparkling restrooms, abundance of gas pumps, and unique food like Beaver Nuggets snacks. Buc-ee’s easily recognizable mascot is a cartoon beaver.

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Who Has the Energy?

Austin City Council approves energy plan to go coal-free by 2035

Photo by Jeremy Doddridge on Unsplash

Austin Energy drafted a plan that the Austin City Council accepted unanimously.

Many are uncertain about the world's collective energy strategy, but the City of Austin has a game plan for the next 10 years. The City Council has unanimously adopted Austin Energy’s Resource, Generation and Climate Protection Plan to 2035.

According to a release from the city, this plan offers "a flexible path to a clean energy future that incorporates the community’s core values of reliability, affordability, environmental sustainability and energy equity."

Members of the public can review extensive documentation, including the 72-page report, at publicinput.com.

The plan authored by Austin Energy includes a number of strategies carried over from 2020. It includes a goal of going completely carbon-free by 2035 in favor of renewable sources like wind and solar; prioritizing solutions that directly impact the customer like better demand response, efficiency programs, solar options, and customer-installed battery storage; and reaching further into exploring more advanced systems like nuclear and geothermal tech or virtual power plants.

It also addresses the need for more responsive solutions during "extreme weather events," both in the heat and cold, which it proposes implementing locally. The lead meteorologist for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) has predicted an overall warmer winter for 2025, but with greater chances of experiencing extreme cold — so this may be an increasingly pressing topic on Austinites' minds.

Despite a sweeping desire to enable more renewable resources, one of the local solutions would be allowing Austin Energy to add more, higher-efficiency natural gas peakers, which would have an emissions cap and only run as an emergency measure. A graph in the report shows that 50 percent of Austin Energy's 2023 generation was renewable, compared to 41 percent of ERCOT's.

"As renewable resources continue to increase in the ERCOT system, we’re seeing new operational challenges," the report explains. "One example is curtailment for these resources when too much power is produced and the system can’t handle it. This makes that resource less valuable to our customers. Local renewable energy, energy storage, energy efficiency and demand response investments avoid these challenges and will be especially important going forward."

“A big part of this plan is readying ourselves to get out of Fayette Power Project,” said Mayor Kirk Watson in the city release. “There must be replacement power to protect customers from energy shortfalls and additional energy market risks. For those who share the goal of getting out of coal, this plan is a step forward.”

Austin Energy created the plan with input from 7,512 customers, including 6,355 residential consumers. Their greatest concern was reliability, ranked as a No. 1 value by 38 percent of participants. There were also stakeholder workshops involving groups like the University of Texas at Austin, Austin ISD, H-E-B, Sierra Club, and Habitat for Humanity.

“We are extremely grateful to Austin City Council and our many community partners and industry experts who played a vital role in shaping Austin Energy’s future,” said Austin Energy general manager Bob Kahn. “We are confident that this plan provides the flexibility Austin Energy needs to meet the challenges ahead while reflecting the priorities of our community.”

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