Drive west from Austin or Dallas-Fort Worth towards cities like Midland, Amarillo, or El Paso, and you’re bound to see your share of wind turbines dotting the landscape.
That’s because Texas leads the nation in wind capacity, and more wind farms are on the way. That’s reflected in this map, which shows each county’s annual wind energy production in gigawatt hours. (One gigawatt hour is enough to power 200,000 Texas homes during peak summer energy demand, and many more than that during cooler times.)
Photo by UPI/Pat Benic/LANDOV
Texas has more wind energy than any other state.
It’s important to note that the values for this map are not exact. The data comes from The Wind Power, a wind industry website, which maintains a database of every wind farm in the world. While the group records the county and annual production of each wind farm, some farms span multiple counties, which means that some production data had to be approximated. Still, this map is a reasonably accurate representation of where Texas’ wind production is coming from.
Even though Texas is the nation’s wind leader, only 46 of its 254 counties are wind producers. The vast majority of these are found in West Texas and the Panhandle, although coastal counties like Kenedy and Willacy are also represented. Wind farms along the Gulf Coast might become more prolific in the future as companies continue to develop onshore wind, and look to offshore wind capabilities as well.
A wind turbine in Sterling county. Texas has more wind power than any other state, and more than most countries.
With Plenty of Turbines and Pumpjacks Along the Way
Over a thousand miles later, StateImpact Texas has returned from our first “Road Show,” a journey that took us from Austin to Midland-Odessa, then to Marfa, and back. Along the way, we heard stories of the drought, the drilling boom, and what everyday Texans think about energy and environment.
Photo by Terrence Henry/StateImpact Texas
A pumpjack in the Monahans Sandhills in West Texas.
One thing we saw a lot of this trip? Wind turbines and pumpjacks. Hundreds of them. Sometimes pretty close together, which makes for an interesting visual.
Those two icons tell two different stories about Texas energy. One is a victory for renewables, while the other means a continued reliance on fossil fuels. Continue Reading →
Texas leads the nation in wind energy production and capacity. Now the federal government is getting in on the action in an effort to clean up its carbon-emitting act.
The Department of Energy announced this week that Texas will be the home of the country’s largest federally-owned wind farm. The farm will be built at the Pantex Plant, which is the nation’s primary site for nuclear weapon maintenance. The plant, located about 20 miles northeast of Amarillo, will have 60 percent of its energy needs met by the farm.
StateImpact Texas reporter Terrence Henry moderates a panel on the impacts of the drilling boom in West Texas in Odessa Tuesday, with (left to right) Kirk Edwards, Libby Campbell, W. Hoxie Smith, Gil Van De Venter, and Paul Weatherby.
StateImpact Texas hit the road this week to talk to communities in West Texas about the impacts of drilling and the drought. On Tuesday, we spent the day in Midland, talking to locals, oil field workers and new arrivals about how a massive uptick in drilling is changing the community.
We’ve been posting updates from the road to our Tumblr, here’s a few selections from our time in the Permian Basin, from a barber who thinks there’s more booms to come, to the effects of a housing shortage: Continue Reading →
In Rosenberg, even the manhole covers have a train insignia on them. Railroads are the town’s heritage.
In this city 20 miles west of Houston and at the edge of South Texas, three rail lines converge. Add to the trains all the trucks the cross the town’s south side on the Interstate 69 corridor.
It all makes this small city a big hub of transportation. But should something go wrong, the firefighters who’d be first to arrive weren’t sure they’d be prepared.
“One of our major concerns was being able to suppress the vapors if there was a fire. And we identified that as a high risk,” said Darrell Himly, Rosenberg’s assistant fire chief.
It’s a risk the county didn’t want to take. Not only is rail being used more to haul crude oil from the booming oil fields of South Texas, there’s also more petrochemical shipments passing through as refineries expand along the Gulf Coast, giving Rosenberg officials more reason than ever to wonder “what if”. Continue Reading →
To his surprise, Jerry Bates has had a busy summer.
Bates owns Frio River Outfitters & Happy Hollow Grocery in Concan, a small Hill Country community 90 minutes west of San Antonio. In addition to selling basic groceries and camping equipment, Happy Hollow’s main business is renting out tubes and kayaks to tourists on the Frio River.
Bates’ livelihood depends on the Frio, and even though the river has been down, business is up.
“It’s been probably one of the busiest summers we’ve ever had,” he said. “Which is amazing, because the river levels are pretty low right now.”
The low levels are a consequence of Texas’ drought, which continues to dry up bodies of water throughout the state. That includes rivers like the Guadalupe, Comal, San Marcos, and Brazos, all of which are popular tubing destinations. Continue Reading →
Texas is changing — with more people, less water, and a surge in oil and gas drilling that is changing communities. To see some of that change up close, we here at StateImpact Texas have embarked on an occasional trip across the state — what we’re calling a “Road Show” — to engage with those communities. We’re traveling to hear from local, everyday Texans directly about how issues of energy and the environment are impacting them.
Our first trip, taking place this week, takes us from our home of Austin to West Texas, home of the drilling hotbed of the Permian Basin. Tonight we’ll be hosting a panel and community forum in Odessa on how that oil and gas boom is affecting the land, water and community of West Texas.
And along the way we’ve been talking to Texans about the drought, drilling and wind energy, to name just a few subjects. We’re posting short updates to our Tumblr page, and here’s a selection from our first few stops, Lampasas and Brownwood: Continue Reading →
The Texas Water Development Board’s most recent drought report showed that 97 percent of the state is still experiencing some level of drought. So what does a state that parched look like?
The Aquarena Center, an educational center at the headwaters of the San Marcos River.
Development May Have Already Damaged Fragile HabitatsÂ
San Marcos, Texas is the fastest-growing city in the nation, in a rapidly-growing state, and with that growth comes concerns over balancing development with environmental and ecological needs.
Tensions over development exist in communities across the country, but they are amplified in San Marcos, which is home to approximately 50,000 people, and a number of endangered species, including rare salamanders and golden-cheeked warblers. The growth in San Marcos has been a source of conflict among residents, as well as a source of pride.
Some residents see the city’s real estate development as an economic opportunity, and necessary to house the growing student population of Texas State University. Others say that new student housing developments are eroding the character of the town they love, and damaging the area’s fragile natural environment. Continue Reading →
Pink flags mark the place where pine seedling will be planted in the remains of Bastrop State Park. Experts say fires like the one that ravaged the park in 2011 will become more common in the future.
This summer the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department celebrated its 50th anniversary. To mark the occasion TPWD Executive Director Carter Smith sat down with StateImpact Texas to talk about the history of the Department, and what climate change means for Parks’ future.
One interesting historical nugget?
Smith began the interview mentioning how how an illegal dove hunting trip by Lyndon Baines Johnson (and a run-in with a game warden) helped create the modern day TPWD.
MOSE BUCHELE: So LBJ figures into this somehow?
SMITH: Well, as the story goes, LBJ was dove hunting after legal shooting hours in hill country with several other well known hill country politicians and one of our game wardens, Grover Simpson, who was a legendary figure, came upon them shooting after sunset. And when he pulled into the pasture he saw three men around a truck and when he pulled up there were only two.
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Texas is changing — with more people, less water, and a surge in oil and gas drilling that is changing communities. To see some of that change up close, we here at StateImpact Texas have embarked on an occasional trip across the state — what we’re calling a “Road Show” — to engage with those communities. We’re traveling to hear from local, everyday Texans directly about how issues of energy and the environment are impacting them.
