Texas beats others as "greener" energy state? (Houston: 2009, home)

[ILikeSmartHippies]

I thought this was interesting..

"Texas itself was moving into the forefront of states aggressively building out wind generation capacity. Now it’s getting set to go even greener, with a bill its senate passed this week that would provide a half billion dollars in solar subsidies over the next five years."

....

The Texas Anomaly - Energywise: IEEE Spectrum's blog on green power, cars and climate

[sxrckr]

Yes, this is true... and many people from out of state just stereotype Texas and would be surprised about this.
I thought I also saw an article or list somewhere that showed Houston as ranking very high in green building and green initiatives... right after come cities in CA.

[verybadgnome]

Progress has been made but I think Texas, especially on the wind energy front, but it is still the highest emitter of any state as far as CO2 (though to be fair it is ranked second as far as state GDP).

[professorac]

I love the fact that Texas is getting greener, But I must say I hate the wind energy idea. I use to live in Mineral Wells & it was a beautiful trip from Mineral Wells to Graham but now they are putting wind energy units all over the mountains plus going on I-20 to Midland from Fort Worth. In Abilene, the mountains are trashed out with the wind units. Solar power or smaller wind units would be better. But it is still nice that Texas is getting greener.

[verybadgnome]

Originally Posted by professorac

I love the fact that Texas is getting greener, But I must say I hate the wind energy idea. I use to live in Mineral Wells & it was a beautiful trip from Mineral Wells to Graham but now they are putting wind energy units all over the mountains plus going on I-20 to Midland from Fort Worth. In Abilene, the mountains are trashed out with the wind units. Solar power or smaller wind units would be better. But it is still nice that Texas is getting greener.

When you consider the down sides of wind energy you have to keep it in perspective. That is look at all the downsides of our most popular fuel for electricity, coal, and wind suddenly looks pretty darn good. The only thing coal wins on his reliability/abundance as when you look at all of the external environmental costs of coal it may not be worth it.

[ILikeSmartHippies]

I always thought wind generators looked pretty cool on a mountainside. w. Europe is full of them, hills & hills of the big white ones.. very picturesque.

Though I'll also admit that I think oil platforms look cool off the california coast, esp. at night when they look like stars floating above the horizon.

[awecelot]

Originally Posted by ILikeSmartHippies

I always thought wind generators looked pretty cool on a mountainside. w. Europe is full of them, hills & hills of the big white ones.. very picturesque.

Like this?


(Image from windpowerninja.com)

That pic is from West Texas.

[lone sailor]

Originally Posted by professorac

I love the fact that Texas is getting greener, But I must say I hate the wind energy idea. I use to live in Mineral Wells & it was a beautiful trip from Mineral Wells to Graham but now they are putting wind energy units all over the mountains plus going on I-20 to Midland from Fort Worth. In Abilene, the mountains are trashed out with the wind units. Solar power or smaller wind units would be better. But it is still nice that Texas is getting greener.

That's the kind of typical American thinking I was expecting. "If I have to see it and it's ugly, I don't want it". It's that kind of thinking that has us in the position we're in now. Everyone is looking for something aesthetically pleasing because they don't want to live next to a wind generator or a farm of them, regardless of whether the sources we've been using for the last 100 years has a huge percentage of power and resources lost in transmission just to get it to the end user. What we should be doing is not giving two ****s about how something looks and start making progress now for future generations based on what works the best, what is the most efficient, what is most cost friendly, etc. Selfishness gets us nowhere.

[TexasTheKid]

There's a lot of empty land in West Texas and the Panhandle to put all those windmills. Don't get upset that you may have to see a few from the interstate when you're driving into New Mexico.

And, as far as "green" goes, is it really all that surprising that Texas, the home of most of the world's energy companies, is staying on the forefront of energy production? A sizeable chunk of our state's GDP is based on energy. That ain't gonna change, regardless of whether oil runs out or wind and solar become more economical.

[Greenestgrass]

Some of these comments are strange to say the least.

I'd take a field of wind generators over a field of oil derricks and a sea of oil platforms any day if we're talking aesthetics.

http://www.angelfire.com/la3/newiber...dc995239aa.jpg
sixpounder (flickr)

http://www.angelfire.com/la3/newiber...c187d12a6d.jpg
ndrice323 (flickr)

Oil Platforms on Flickr - Photo Sharing!
very1silent (flickr)