I have been away from my computer for a few days traveling around the Big Bend area of Texas. I have a few observations about the trip that seem applicable to this blog.
On the way one passes through huge wind farms. You can feel the wind buffeting your car as you watch the windmills turn. One immediately gets the idea that good wind is localized. The windmills dot the landscape as far as the eye can see and they make you feel like you're in the land of giants.
A few miles further down the road you drive into the oil field territory of Midland-Odessa. There too the landscape is dotted, only this time with pumper jacks and drilling rigs. The towns are all oil-field oriented, the place reeks of petroleum.
In either place, it hits home that energy is big business. And as always, there is a compromise in its effect on the landscape. It also gives you a feeling of pride that Texas was a leader in oil, and is now a leader in wind. We get energy here, and we are willing to make the sacrifices to assure us of a fundamental thing we need to prosper...energy.
In these oil-field towns we saw large quantities of inventory sitting in the yards of the businesses that supply services to the industry. It was obvious, we are once again in the the throes of an oil-field slow down. People aren't drilling.
But even more unfortunate was the slow down on the wind farms. We didn't see one tower under construction, or one truck loaded with blades. Our economic crisis has hit this industry hard.
But isn't it interesting that the people who control the world's oil supply created a boom, that led to a bust that adversely affected our economy that dried up the money to invest in wind power?
Driving through the plains of west Texas allowed us to see the drama played out first hand. Obama called it shock and trance. What ever we call it, it's bad for America, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for business.
Bottom Line - Whether you like being dwarfed by drilling rigs or windmills, there is a cost to energy production. But our trip through the center of this energy production in Texas was unsettling and makes me feel less secure about our future.
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So, what's the answer and what can we, as citizens, do?
ReplyDeleteAnd, hopefully the lack of energy on your trip doesn't translate to a lack of energy on this blog. New post soon?
There are many organizations out there urging you to write your elected officials regarding energy strategy in one form or another.
ReplyDeleteThere is still a lot of vigorous debate yet to be had on many fronts regarding energy. Oxes need to be gored and there aren't any politicians that will gore their own unless they think their constituents support them. Like windmills, they produce the most when they go whichever way the wind is blowing.
My advice would be to make sure that your elected officials know how you feel.