Riding the Wind in Texas

What is going on in Texas? Most of the people there voted for Trump and are big supporters of anything he says or does except when it comes to energy. The days of the rich oil men are over. The state has gone to clean energy. That policy is the complete opposite from Trump’s policies. It is an energy revolution. Wind farms have been a growing trend for years but who expected big successes in that form of energy in Texas? Renewable technology is finding a home in Texas and the Red state is reaping real benefits from NOT going along with Trump’s policies.

There are towns in Texas like Rocsoe,   that used to rely on cotton as their cash crop but even that industry is going under big changes.  A German Energy Company called E.ON based in Dusseldorf, Germany put new life into Roscoe Texas that was so poor of a place of only 1,300 people that even once the Dairy Queen had to close down. Now Roscoe, Texas is home to the world’s largest wind farm thanks to the construction of the windmills by the German company. There is a quilt of windmills on leased land there. For a state that is known for its oil, this is amazingly progressive.

Texas has its own infrastructure and its own grid and less regulation. Meanwhile Texas’s former Governor Rick Perry is Trump’s Energy Secretary and   when it comes to energy policy, the Trump Administration and Texas is NO longer on the same page. Trump talks about his “clean coal” as a solution to employment in energy industries and NEVER talks about promoting alternative clean energy solutions. It is tragic that we had to rely on the generosity of a German company to invest in the resurrection of our poor towns and revitalize with good solutions. Rick Perry   does nothing not even for his home state who have elected him and Trump to big government jobs.

Trump’s desire to support the coal industry only employs about 51,000 workers.  Already the wind industry employs more than 100,000 workers and America has 84,000 wind turbines according to the American Wind Energy Association. States are taking matters into their own hands. New York is stepping up clean energy to power up by the year 2030,  1.2 Million homes. In West Texas renewable energy is becoming an economic boom. After all, Americans just want good jobs and want to feed their families and have a reasonably good life. Trump promises but doesn’t deliver.

Prosperity helps the tax base and then the schools and communities improve. Somebody needs to tell Trump that wind energy especially in the vast plains of this country can bring in immense wealth to the communities it serves. Land owners have embraced the wind and the change it brings in to now their surviving communities where Dairy Queens can open up everywhere to serve communities who can even just afford a good milk shake for a change. Can we change Trump with a good milk shake? Nah, he likes his chocolate cake.