Somebody asked me
‘what does a wind generator sound like?’
and I said, ‘It sounds like money to me’.
I’m a conservative Republican and...
I absolutely love the environment
I love renewable energy.
Texas is still the wild west of wind.
You can come out here as an entrepreneur
or big company
stake out a place on the ground
get the landowners to give you a wind lease
and develop a wind farm.
Renewable energy was basically unknown
in this part of west Texas
until the late 1990s.
My first client
came into my office one day and he said
‘would you look at this
someone has given me a wind lease
they want to build actually a wind farm
on my ranch’.
That really launched my career in wind
representing landowners
it also sparked the beginning of
the wind boom that we had here in Sweetwater.
When I see them
I’m around them
it just makes you smile.
It’s a huge thing
to know it’s going to help us all.
We’re able to still graze
and utilise all the grasses below them.
The cattle love them.
I always jokingly say that
they love them because they know
that it helps buy feed
to feed them.
The wind business
again has really helped us
make a living.
We can take better care of the land
and improve its quality
so it’s
it’s really been a godsend
for all west Texans
especially my family.
Yeah, my view has changed
on renewable energy over the years.
First and foremost, I’m a businessman
and the original decision was just
that it was a business decision.
There is no regulatory or governmental risk
with wind and solar business
because there’s nothing to regulate
everything is clean energy
no pollutants go back in the air
and you can't say that for fossil fuels
especially coal.
In oil and gas
you pay later.
You tear up the environment
you contaminate
and then money has to be spent
by the government later to clean it up.
Wind or solar on the other hand
you give an economic incentive early
but there’s no clean-up.
We all know that one day
fossil fuels will run out
not perhaps in my lifetime
but maybe in my grandchildren’s lifetime.
That’s the deal
if you really want a long-term planning
let’s go out 20,000 years.
Are we going to have enough fossil fuels
to generate electricity in Texas?
I don’t think so.
I know we’ll have wind and solar.
So that’s really an extreme example
of long-term strategic planning.