The Great Texas Wind Rush

The Great Texas Wind Rush
By Kate Galbraith and Asher Price

Main Points:

• In 2006, Texas was passing California to become the nation's #1 wind power state. 
• Texas remains number one in wind power (12,000 megawatts) and about 9% on the Texas electric grid came from wind. The next closest state (California) has less than half of the amount that Texas does. 
• On particular windy days, the amount of wind power on the Texas grid climbs above 20%. 
• Texas wind themes
• Relationship between wind power and oil
• Connection between Texas wind and Texas music
• Jay Carter Sr and Jay Carter Jr operated out of Burkburnett (couple hours north of Dallas in what was once considered Boomtown USA), one of many towns in the US where oil was booming. 
• Texas wind predates the 1970's energy crisis. Even 150 years ago wind power was going strong in the Great Plains (water windmills helped pull water out of the aquifer so that the plains could be fruitful). Midlands Texas was known as the windmill town. Things evolved after WWI, where many pilots see similarities in design between airplane wings and wind turbine blades. Potential for many rural ranches to have a wind charger to light a few flickering lights. These isolate ranches did not have centralized power. FDR and the Rural Electrification Administration killed off these wind chargers. 
• The Carters were making experimental turbines
• Michael Osborne builds the very first wind farm in Texas. Located in Pampa (one of the remotest parts of Texas in the Panhandle and one of its windiest parts). He put up 5 x 25 kW turbines which are about 1/100th of the capacity of enormous wind turbines which you see in West Texas. 
• Father Joe James is a priest in Lubbock, Texas who buys some Carter turbines and locates five by his church/football field in 1982. 
• 1970's were a great time of wind innovation. In 1980's the interest dies down, and in California Jerry Brown supports the construction of many wind farms around the state (80-90% of the world's wind power was located there). California was conscious of the bird migratory patterns in the Altima Pass, but some Texans like Jerry Patterson said this would lead to "smarter birds."
• 1990's George HW Bush signs off on the Production Tax Credit (force for wind) and goes to the Rio de Janeiro Climate conference and Ann Richards is in power. Public power utility in Austin takes a risk and buys a small amount of wind power. They partner with a California company and create one of the first large wind farms. They found the windiest part in Texas and ask for Guadalupe Mountains national park. NPS says no, so they put up the wind turbines in Delaware Mountains.
• In 1999, Governor George W. Bush signs a massive law with electric power deregulation and also a new Renewable Portfolio Standard (mandate that asks for 2,000 MW of renewable energy (wind turbine) ) to be built by 2009. Texas is so far beyond that -12,000MW. 
• Texas has supported wind by investing $7 billion of transmission lines to connect wind farms which are in west Texas and are now being built in the Panhandle to the cities in central and east Texas. This is the untold story of Texan wind ($300/citizen in Texas). 
• In the early 80's you had small turbines, by the late 90's you had modern scale wind farms. Texas always likes to building the biggest wind farm in the country. In the mid-1990's there were public power utility Lower Colorado River Authority in Austin were committed to an experiment to buy wind power. In 1996, George Bush calls his top public utility rate regulator into his office and Bush says "we like wind, go get smart on wind." Some of Bush's friends like Kenneth Lay of Enron, Sam Wiley of Green Mountain Power were getting interested in green power issues. Bush also group up in Midland which has plenty of wind. What this led to is an interesting process in Texas called "deliberate polling" where they go to different cities and find large groups and educate people on power sources. People would come in for the weekend, hear about the pros and cons of natural gas  - everyone became pro-wind power after this process took place. In 1999 Bush signed the Renewable Energy mandate. 
• What is the rise of the Tea Party on renewable energy in Texas? Governor Rick Perry was going to a wind farm in west Texas 10 years ago. The press release would talk about the number of carbon dioxide tons that this eliminates. 
• Famous anecdote about wind energy in Texas: someone stands by a newly opened wind turbine and looks up and says "Ah now we can drill above the ground, as well as below"
• T. Boone Pickens, oil and gas billionaire, has gone around since 2008 trying to create a platform for himself called the "Pickens Plan" which would bring the country off of foreign oil with the help of wind and natural gas. He said he would build the largest wind farm in the country by his home in Tampa. Hydraulic fracturing forces him to retract his statement when the hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling took off.
• Texas is a unique laboratory because of ERCOT which is distinct from the Eastern and Western interconnection. Allowing for quick innovation and expansion of the wind turbine industry.
• Stanford study on natural gas says that cheap NG will displace coal and will challenge renewable energy. The interplay between wind, natural gas, and coal is important. Wind and gas are complementary (natural gas peaked plants can be turned on and off quickly). There is a study by the Brattel group and clean power coalition in Texas that says that the combination of wind and natural gas could add to coal's problems (federal regulations coming down the pipeline). 
• Duke Energy put up a battery in West Texas paired with wind farm (20-30 MW) and texas has one of the largest batteries in the country in a town called Presidio because they have one powerline with wooden poles that supports this town and could fall apart. Talks about a compressed air storage facility in the Panhandle, but this depends on policy as well. 
• Lot of Texan growth on Gulf Projects 
• Texas invested 2,000 MW of wind which was a $4 billion investment, should the industry be more proactive and voicing their impact or should they sit back and let fracking take the focus? 10 years ago wind was being built in the West Texas region. Now there is a greater emphasis on how wind turbines use less water than any hydro fracking technology- water is the subject of a $2 billion vote. Water is big topic due to drought. 

Listen to Kate Galbraith's talk at the New America Foundation on her book and Texan wind!