Energy, Texas Style.

The people of Texas are remarkable. They look life squarely in the eye and never seem afraid to face a challenge. I have long admired the Texans who put up with smelly oil fields so others can tool around in their sports cars, in cities where the population flatly refuses to allow oil drilling or refinement anywhere near their environs.

Now it is wind turbines. I keep hearing people complain about wind turbines - for any number of reasons - most of which seem frivolous to me. but, in their usual can-do spirit, Texans accept the turbines by the thousands! No exaggeration... there are thousands of these things in Texas.

Distance fools the eye, and even when you stand under one of these things and look up at it, it is hard to appreciate its size!

The height of the individual turbines is determined by the prevailing wind patterns, but they appear to vary in height from 200 to 400 feet.

It is not until you look at the base of one of these beauties and see the access port which allows workmen to reach the ladder that takes you to the very top.

Yes, there could be people inside that distant turbine you see. They provide necessary maintenance to keep it churning out the megawatts.

I wondered what a technician might do once they reached the top... until I walked up close to one of the nacels sitting on the ground before it was mounted on its tower.

These things are the size of a motor home, and may contain all the comforts of home, for all I know.

Finally, there are the propellor blades which actually catch the wind and do the work.

Like every other part of this enterprise, they are huge.

When I was a small boy on a Missouri farm, we heated and cooked with wood burning stoves. What drudgery it was for my mother to start, control and clean up after a wood fire in her kitchen stove.

These beautiful, white turbines make it possible for a modern American to just flip a switch and produce heat to cook dinner. How beautiful can that be?

Yes, there are wind turbines in other places. There are none, however, off-shore in Massachusetts. Why spoil that scenery when the Texans are happy to provide them their electricity?