The American Spectator : A Fine Texas Wind

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A Fine Texas Wind

By William Murchison from the March 2010 issue

Our nation's energy giant holds its own in the carbon wars.

(Page 2 of 2)

Texans, in other words, would have to be loopy not to understand that energy production and provision don't make harsher demands than in the old days when we filled up our Chevys with 29-cent regular and dropped our thermostats to 68 in the summer. That ole dog, as we say, won't hunt: not with the big oil fields, such as East Texas, all gone now.

A kind of encomium to Texas came in, of all places, a New York Times analysis last fall: Texas and California as "policy laboratories" for clean, renewable energy. Texas, wrote Kate Galbraith, "has...emerged as the nation's top producer or a commodity prized by environmentalists: wind power. Eager developers are covering its desolate western mesas with giant turbines." (They ain't much to look at, I can tell you, lady, but they sure beat up a whole lot of energy!)

"The world's largest wind farm began operations in Texas [in October 2009], and the state now has close to three times as much wind capacity as Iowa, the second-ranked state....Texas' secret, besides strong winds and lots of land, is its lack of regulation. Wind developers rave about the fact that, in essence, they need few state permits to build a turbine farm." Indeed, the state's renewable energy requirement dates back a whole decade to (how do you like it, Miz Pelosi?) the governorship of George W. Bush. In 2008, those good ole gasoline-sloshing Texans got 5 percent of their energy from wind. Yee-haw.

From a different ideological quarter, that of Investor's Business Daily, comes the sound of more clapping hands: "California should copy Texas" -- by easing central planning requirements, encouraging enterprise, and dialing down some of the grosser environmental enthusiasms, such as saving "obscure species of fish" at the cost of drying up once-fertile agricultural land.

Coal? You want clean coal? Kathleen Hartnett White, who runs the natural resources shop at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, writes that "New coal plants equipped with cutting-edge technology, and retrofits of existing plants, have contributed to major improvement in the air quality of Texas and other regions." A dozen clean-coal demonstration projects are under way in the state. A good thing, too, not least because Texas is the nation's heaviest user of coal. White gets excited by the prospect of an oil-recovery technique -- carbon capture and storage -- as coming into use for nabbing CO2 from coal-fire generation and either using it commercially or storing vast amounts of it underneath the state's coastal waters or in its brine deposits.

The big stink and stir over carbon is great fun, possibly, for the policy chieftains in Washington who imagine, possibly, they and their ideas might languish forever in university seminar rooms and on daily blogs. And yet the fun ignores reality. You don't generally, in the Washington, D.C.-California manner, have to kick and pummel people to make them do economically sound things. It helps sometimes just to encourage them.

Nor is it useful to kick around those on whose success rests the success of the larger community. Texans don't require successions of back thumps from politicians (a class they tend not to admire unduly). Some respectful conversation would do as well. When-if-Capitol Hill returns to "climate change" and fuel efficiency, there will be immense value in poking around to see what the pros are up to, and what their experience suggests others might do in imitation. Of course that would suggest the need for some ventures in unprecedented modesty at high executive levels, some backtracking from advanced postures of certainty.

Ummm-hmmm. We'll see about all that.

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About the Author

William Murchison, a Dallas-based columnist for Creators Syndicate and author of Mortal Follies: Episcopalians and the Crisis of Mainline Christianity (Encounter Books), is completing a biography of John Dickinson..

Letter to the Editor View all comments (16) | Leave a comment

RustyG| 3.17.10 @ 7:53AM

Regarding Texas wind farms, the old joke goes.....

The Yankee was visiting the Texas Panhandle and asks the lanky Texan:
Yankee: Does the wind always blow this way?
Texan: Nope...sometimes it blows the other way.

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Jennie Taliaferro| 3.17.10 @ 8:24AM

Reliant Energy just got me to sign a contract providing that 20% of my power comes from wind power.
What if the wind doesn't blow? Because here in Dallas, it just doesn't blow all that much.
So, will I still get power or what?
Not only that, where are all these windmills?
West Texas? Are these T. Boone Pickens's mills?
Word has it that anyone who lives near these is driven crazy by the noise.

Curly Smith| 3.17.10 @ 9:25AM

The only thing that your contract did was increase your cost. Instead of charging you $0.10/kwhr for conventional electricity you'll be charged (80%) * $0.10/kwhr + (20%) * $0.18/kwhr. Based on the above numbers your electrical cost will increase by 16%.

Victor Howard| 3.18.10 @ 9:17AM

You electricity does not necessarily come from windmills. Reliant is buy Renewable Energy Credits to fund the wind portion. I am sure you signed on a high rate with Reliant. Gexa Energy has 25% wind an 100% wind plans that cost you less money...

Ken (Old Texican)| 3.17.10 @ 10:28AM

Mr. Murchison,
Thank you for that. Some good sense for a change. Keep it up.
Heh!
Remember the old joke in the 70s about Texas joining OPEC..."and freeze a Yankee in the dark."?

I do want to remind the folks here that in 8 years from a standing start...(1973 through 1981)...the energy industry based here worked ourselves out of a job after the "oil crisis".

Thank you also for providing some solid numbers about Texas' contributions to the country.

A pipeliner friend sent me a map a while back showing the major pipelines transporting fuel to the rest of the country from Texas. He asked WHEN we would "go Galt".

Paul from SA| 3.17.10 @ 2:06PM

'81 was a very bad year for Texas oil. Odessa had a 25% unemployment rate that year. I know; I was there.

Then Reagan's policies slowly began to take effect...

Paul from SA| 3.17.10 @ 2:03PM

We need lots of electricity and water for the future of south Texas, and the liberals will do anything to stop us. Water and electricity mean people have freedom. The key for the libs is to create a shortage, thus allowing them to control us.

Joe| 3.17.10 @ 4:11PM

I still say this more expensive energy (Wind Mills) is not necessary since there is no global warming going on man made or not. This is a complete waist of land and money. People get your heads out of the sand.

Brian H| 3.17.10 @ 6:14PM

Joe's right, of course, except that it's "waste", not "waist". ;)
The hilarious thing about wind farms is that they always need 100% conventional back-up in case the wind don't blow. Factor in the subsidizing, and they're a mega-boondoggle.

Brian H| 3.17.10 @ 6:17PM

In any case, starting in about 5 years, the generators developed at focusfusion.org will begin replacing all power sources on the planet, at about 5% of current best costs. No waste, no pollution; no shi*.

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Michele San Pietro| 3.21.10 @ 11:28AM

Texas is still a wonderful State where true Americans leave, and Obama will never succeed in the senseless task of destroying it.

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