I drove from Illinois to Arizona just last week. In west Texas, steady winds were turning hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of energy converters. Below those turbines were enormous fields of corn rivaling anything seen in southern Illinois. Ethanol? When the wind farms ended the feed lots began. Thousands and thousands of head of cattle being fed from hay piles five hundred feet long and two stories tall. Beyond that, a thousand head of black angus free grazing next to man-made water resevoirs a thousand foot wide.
One thing you learn about Texans -- they know how to scale.
A big driver of this is the relatively non-existent zoning laws in most of Texas. It's broadly the case (and accepted and defended by people with lots of guns) that you should be free to do just about anything you want on land you own.
Want to build windmills, run cattle, and operate a strip club in your backyard? Go for it.
So you get all these ranchers who realized "shoot, cows only need space up to about 6 feet. I've got all that air not doing anything, might as well put up some windmills."
this is....false. The "big driver of it" is state and federal subsidy, period. And as far as the zoning goes, that is a much much grayer picture than painted by this comment. For example, in the county I live, you couldn't sell liquor on one side of a highway, a highway which runs dead center through the county and town, because of religious influence on the approval and application of zoning laws. And blue laws are only a tiny part of it.
Doesn't compare to the feedlots in El Paso which are easily 5x the size (or more), somewhat higher up from the river.
The west Texas wind was blowing from the south/southwest at 15-20 mph. There was no detectable odor, even west of Amarillo when we stopped for fuel. Hot too. 103 degrees fahrenheit. Plenty of room to dissipate I guess.
I was surprised however, by the amount of corn being grown. I don't remember seeing it just a few years ago. I could be wrong. It seemed out of place but was very healthy. 5-6 feet tall already.
> There was no detectable odor, even west of Amarillo when we stopped for fuel.
I've driven by the Wildorado feedlot dozens of times, and I always put my A/C on recirc 5 miles before and after. The stench still gets into the car. Conditions must have been very unusual during your trip.
I drove from Illinois to Arizona just last week. In west Texas, steady winds were turning hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of energy converters. Below those turbines were enormous fields of corn rivaling anything seen in southern Illinois. Ethanol? When the wind farms ended the feed lots began. Thousands and thousands of head of cattle being fed from hay piles five hundred feet long and two stories tall. Beyond that, a thousand head of black angus free grazing next to man-made water resevoirs a thousand foot wide.
One thing you learn about Texans -- they know how to scale.