SEPTEMBER 2019 29
O
ne of the great pleasures of
roaming Texas roads is driv-
ing our scenic trails. Travel
the Texas Brazos Trail, Forest
Trail, Forts Trail, Hill Country Trail, Inde-
pendence Trail, Lakes Trail—don’t forget
the Mountain, Pecos, Plains, and Tropical
trails—and you’ll see a whole lot of natu-
ral beauty.
I would like to nominate a new trail, or
set of trails, for Texas highway wander-
ers to blaze for a different kind of beauty.
Let’s call it “The Great Texas Wind Turbine
Trail.” The presence of thousands of wind
turbines—on average 300 feet tall but as
tall as almost 600 feet, with three propel-
ler blades of at least 115 feet in length—
has radically transformed much of the
state’s landscape over the past 20 years,
especially in the wide-open western half.
Wind turbines are so huge that they ren-
der Lilliputian all of their surroundings,
even gigantic structures like cell phone
and water towers.
There is a lot of land in Texas and,
therefore, a lot of wind. The prospect of
converting this natural resource into en-
ergy—aided by incentives like the Renew-
able Electricity and Production Tax Credit
and legislation including the American
Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009—
has created a wind boom. Today, Texas
is the top producer of wind power in the
United States, churning out three times
the renewable wind energy as the runner-
up, Oklahoma.
Love ’em or hate ’em, the influx of wind
turbines on Texas land is inescapable.
They’re utilitarian landscape architec-
ture, sometimes arranged in perfect lines,
sometimes rolling with the topography,
always flexing their muscles. The Roscoe
and Horse Hollow wind farms—the for-
mer around the town of Roscoe and the
latter in Taylor and Nolan counties—cover
100,000 acres and 35,000 acres, respec-
tively, with wind turbines. Three to four of
the 10 largest wind turbine farms on Earth
are located in Texas, according to various
sources that monitor the industry.
Driving through a dense concentration
of turbines conveys the sensation of being
on another planet, where humans areshop.texashighways.com