Thursday, June 12, 2008

damn enviros killing the economy

News about Sweetwater, TX, home of North America's largest wind farm:
Development of the region's wind resources will also create an economic bonus similar to the boom the three largest wind farms in America have created around Sweetwater in Nolan County. While other towns in West Texas struggle with plummeting house prices and job losses, Sweetwater is in the midst of a construction explosion. Two new companies opened in the past month, one servicing the blades of the county's 2,000 turbines, another renting out cranes used in erecting new turbines. Tax revenues from the wind energy companies are bringing jobs, new roads and houses, and renovating local schools and hospitals there.

But...but...how will they be able to balance the economy against the environment?

3 comments:

TioChuy said...

Since I was stationed at Fort Hood I've passed through Sweetwater about a thousand times going back and forth from home. We were just through there last weekend for a wedding down in New Braunfels. You would not believe the change in that place. Those "windmills" are literally as far as the eye can see around there. They are kind of eye sores but I guess in this case it's kind of worth it. Unlike the dead oil rigs around them they wont run out of purpose.

sap said...

Huh, el ranchero and I drove past Sweetwater about a year and a half ago now (Dallas to Lubbock and back), and I actually thought they were really lovely. Maybe it was the fact that we hit them at sunset one way and as when the stars were coming out on the way back? Or maybe I'm more of an eco-freak than I thought?

el ranchero said...

It's an aesthetic that doesn't work for everyone, but I also think they're kinda cool. There's a juxtaposition of timeless and state of the art, Old West and New Millennium about a sea of wind turbines on a Sweetwater mesa that I find appealing. There's also something picturesque about dead oil derricks surrounded by spinning wind turbines, the same place providing the country's energy but now in a new way, that's very optimistic.