New Solar Plant Plan Divides West Texas Town
From her front yard, Malinda Beeman can see the round pinkish-brown dome of Chinati Peak rising out of the desert miles away. It’s so quiet most days that she can yell at her five dogs and hear the echo reverberate off some cactus-covered mesa who knows how far from home. “It’s just a different life experience,” Beeman says.
In what she describes as an all-encompassing obsession, Beeman is fighting to preserve that lifestyle, which she and hundreds of other artists have discovered in the West Texas town of Marfa, by waging war with a company that has plans ...
Comments (12)
David Edmonson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
We're all in favor of X ... until X is built near you.
Angie Drake via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Build it in "their" backyard... not mine. At least this one doesn't pollute.
Brad Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
My family ows a small ranch in west texas and I would be mad as hell if they covered the beautiful mesas with wind tubines or solar panels.
Taylor Wayne Johnson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Just Like Ted Kennedy.. We need more Wind Power.... but don't build a wind farm off Nantucket that's where I have a home!
Taylor Wayne Johnson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Want to harness Solar power... Give Tax breaks to home builders that install Solar Panels on new homes not to the makers of them!!! Want to bring cost down on Solar panels over time... increase the use and demand for them. The more you make the cheaper the cost is (after you get volume production up and running)....not to mention Job Creation. You have to start somewhere.
Linda Avery-Sterling via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Get real people, we NEED alternative energy...just look at the Gulf mess!
Daniel Day via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It people Like this that I wish they would be force to clean up the Oil Spill in the Gulf. Its people LIke this that makes me wish that we had $4 a gallon gas again. Its people like this that makes me want to blow up there vehicles and force them back onto a horse.
Suzanne Carmichael Ortiz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So true. Return the money to our citizens, not corporate welfare.
brinkemily
There is more to this story: the fact of the matter is Marfa (and the surrounding region) will see NONE of this green energy and the proposed water usage could be disastrous for the area. We should all be wary of green energy that operates like big business - this company is 'promoting' environmentally friendly practices without taking into account how they will effect the local environment where the energy is produced. We absolutely need green energy, but this is big business cloaked in green - it's more about eco-rhetoric than about actual solutions...
namoyer
Hey, why doesn't Tessera Solar plop their USA taxpayer-subsidized taxshelter investment boondoggle down in San Antonio, where those folks can see/experience where their electricity is coming from?? But, then again, nextdoor landowners can't expect their landowning neighbors to protect the vistas and scenery when you got types like Tessera Solar coming along with land leases, and offers of increased property tax revenues. Maybe Tessera should sweeten the deal and offer viewscape payments to those whose views will be marred by their industry.
Bob Brown via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is my opinion that like the internet it would be better use of our resources if power was generated in millions of sources on millions of properties. But if we decide to further overpopulate the Earth we will be forced to build more large power plants located near population centers.
Living just east of Dallas I know well the feeling of being the utility closet for a large population center. It is the price we pay for uncontrolled population expansion. If nothing changes there will come a day when there will be no more open spaces. There is only so much taxation the Earth can take before it will fail.
TyroneSlothrop
One small point: contrary to what it says in the second paragraph of the story, these are in no sense "satellite dishes." They are parabolic mirrors for concentrating sunlight and have nothing to do with satellites. I'd be happy to have them in my neighborhood.