Fighting the Power Lines to Protect Hill Country Vistas
This is the second part in a three-part series examining Texas' $5 billion build-out of transmission lines to support wind power, which is encountering increasing opposition. The first part in this series looked at the rollout of the lines around the state.
As Robert Weatherford's Ford Expedition climbs and dips through the Hill Country, over creeks beds and past oak-covered slopes, he explains the sensitivities of the residents who populate this rugged yet placid area of Central Texas. "These are the kind of views people are willing to pay a little bit more for," he says.
Weatherford and others ...
Comments (15)
Regina Miller-Fierke via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That is still the wrong way to go. So much efficiency is lost to electron bleed from transporting electricity from so far. Energy systems, especially wind and solar, should be decentralized and integrated into communities.
Joe Noakes via Texas Tribune on Facebook
That is bad short-sided thinking on their part, the sooner we convert to wind power the better for everyone. I bet the oil and natural gas companies are somehow behind the Hill Country initiative.
frgmnt13
What is wrong with these people! I personally think it would be a beautiful addition to see CLEAN ENERGY transmission lines in the distance when I'm standing on Enchanted Rock! This is vital to our state and our country! What happened to wanting to create jobs? Which this will. As far as I am concerned, they are being selfish and irrational. WOULD THEY RATHER HAVE AN OIL PIPELINE!! Aren't these the same people screaming about energy! Unbelieveable.
Bob Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
As Regina opined we need to think of the electric grid like the internet grid. We need to find millions of sources of decentralized energy. If it is done right it can be more stable more affordable and use mostly existing infrastructure.
Joe I don't know where you live but I am guessing the city. Rural people are growing tired of large urban areas using our land and communities as dumps, sewers, water faucets and eminent domained alley ways for their excessive indulgences.
Trey Hatt via Texas Tribune on Facebook
When I was covering this for the Llano County Journal a couple years back, I met and interviewed some of the opposition folks. There's a real distrust of quasi-governmental agencies out there--especially when it comes to eminent domain issues and property value. On the other hand, what the hell are we doing generating electricity if we can't get the juice to market?
Bob Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
I toured the facility at Wolf Ridge in Muenster and they said they have to trim down production often to keep from overloading transmission lines.
Why not move the industry to where thw power is? Just as the cities we built in the past were along water ways, coastlines and obvious cross points why not shift now to the power? Saudi Arabia never had cities until there were oil wells.
EyesOfTX
Well, I think we should all call the state and let them know that frgmnt13 would love to have CREZ lines run through his or her front yard. It's nice to know some Texans are smart enough to volunteer to have their property values destroyed.
Yes, and as Joe says, it must all be a conspiracy by those evil companies! Or maybe it's a conspiracy by those evil power providers who want to keep importing millions of tons of Wyoming coal into Texas to burn in their filth plants - that seems more likely, though no less irrational.
And why don't we just move the industry to where the power is? Well, here's a few reasons:
1) the heaviest industrial users of electricity in Texas - by far - are the refineries and chemical plants that are today located largely along the coastline, so that they are able to offload oil coming in on ships.
2) Wind, on its best days, provides less than 10% of Texas' power in a given, rare hour. On most days it is less than 2%.
3) On its best days, the wind blows strongly enough to turn those 200 foot tall turbines about 30% of the time. On its worst days - which are frequent - it blows strongly enough to turn them less than 2% of the time.
4) The overwhelming majority of electric power in Texas is produced from plants that lie East of I-35, which - coincidentally, I'm sure - is also the part of the state where the overwhelming majority of industrial activity takes place.
So to sum up, in order to move the industrial users to where the wind power is, all we need to do is:
1) dig a canal the size of the Panama Canal from the Gulf Coast to West Texas, a distance about 30 times as long as the Panama Canal. That shouldn't cost much; or
2) get used to doing with out gasoline, motor oil, diesel, lights or air conditioning.
Should be no problem. What could go wrong?
frgmnt13
Really not sure what the point of all that was. How damn big of an area are we talking about!? Literally millions of acres. I really don't think they will be that much of an eyesore. As well, my understanding is that most of this energy is going for residential use. As well, fossil fuels time is over. The transition will take decades, but IS STARTING NOW, like it or not. People are sick of oil and coal, and all the degradation, poison, cancer, and other malevolence that come with it. Get used to it, because detractors are in the minority, and it's going to happen no matter what. Only 4 decades TOO LATE.
EyesOfTX
frgmnt13: Why was it necessary? Because I am sick to death of sanctimonious folks like you telling the rest of us we should be ashamed of ourselves for not wanting our property values destroyed by these damned CREZ lines, which are one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on the Texas public.
Folks like you are the same group of sanctimonious people who no doubt OPPOSED the Trans Texas Corridor concept for the very same reasons as people today oppose the CREZ lines. Whether you are moving people or power, you are condemning huge chunks of land and destroying property values.
You don't get to have it both ways.
frgmnt13
Simmer down. Not trying to be confrontational. If you don't want it on your land, fine. But where do you get your energy from, and what kind of impact is it having on many people. I'm sure there is an alternative way to work this out. If those of us on BOTH sides would quite trying to frame this as some war between environmentalist and land owners or as some kind of conflict in general, and start working together for the betterment of ALL of us stuff can get done. I though everyone was tired of gridlock? Everywhere you look we are divided. It is ridiculous. We all live here and want the best for all of us.
RockyMissouri
I guess, once again, we are let down by entities that don't give a rats' a$$ about us--- we were hopeful when T Boone and others falsely claimed that wind energy was the future, blah blah blah blah-empty empty---I now understand rage---
Joe Noakes via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Actually, Bob, I have lived in rural, urban, and suburban parts all over central and south Texas in the past 30 years. I think insisting on a division between what is good for rural and what is good for urban is ultimately wrong and misleading.
Bob Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Joe what do think is misleading about what I said?
leotynan
The argument for protecting the Hill Country should transcend the concerns about individual property owner's views or rights, though these are legitimate and must be addressed . The bigger issue is about preserving a part of the state that is ecologically and historically rich and is the bucolic sanctuary for millions of Texans every year. It is their escape from the insanity that typifies 21st century urban life. Few city dwellers, among them the greens ironically, truly understand the horrific environmental impact of industrial wind farms and transmission lines, sprawling over hundreds of thousands of acres of open, often pristine, country. The environmental damage, which has so far been officially ignored by the State of Texas, and unseen by the vast majority of Texans, is real and is happening with alarming speed, Considering there are many ways to skin the renewable energy cat, maybe we should err on the side of protecting our few remaining areas of hills, streams, and open vistas rather than sacrificing them to feed our power lust.
alcifribas
Power lines are a necessity. Their appearance grates upon the delicate sensibilities of those who have bought grand vistas that inflate one's already inflated ego. I have lived in Bandera County for many decades and the only ugly thing I see every day are tasteless MacMansions spoiling nearly every, once beautiful, hilltop.