(narrator)
Is that a spaghetti Western
I hear
or the sound of
untapped kinetic energy?
We're in Texas.
It's my home state.
It's a place most folks
associate with these guys,
(Describer) Oil wells.
but Texas
is quickly becoming
a national leader
in wind energy.
(Describer) Joe:
If Texas were a country--
and believe me,
some people think
that it is--
it would be fifth in the world
for wind energy generation.
How we get our energy
is changing fast,
but what's really behind this
shift from buried fossils
to harnessing power
from a breeze?
And how do we make sure
that there's always
power on the other end of this?
(Describer) He plugs in a cord.
Title: OverView.
[music playing]
You can't grow up here and
not be aware of the oil story--
stuff like Spindletop
and the Gusher Age.
They passed into lore,
almost like the Alamo story
or something like that.
(Describer) In a film...
(speaker on newsreel)
Oil. The real lifeblood
of the state.
(speaker)
For the last century
or more, the identity of Texas
has been intertwined
with energy.
(Joe)
This is Dr. Varun Rai.
He's an expert in energy policy
at the University of Texas
at Austin.
(Varun)
The last two decades really
has been the story
of renewables.
(Describer) Wind turbines spin.
(Joe)
2020 was the year that
wind overtook coal in Texas,
which was previously
the second biggest
energy producer in the
state behind natural gas.
In 2020, Texas clocked
29,407 megawatts
of installed
wind-power capacity.
Those wind projects
combined could
power nearly 6 million
homes, and that's
great news for our
warming climate.
As global demand for
energy has increased,
so have the emissions
caused by traditional sources
of energy production.
Electricity production
is actually
the second largest contributor
to greenhouse gas emissions
behind transportation.
(Describer) Rai:
(Varun)
Burning fossil fuels
generates
greenhouse gas emissions,
and that contributes
to climate change.
So that's an important issue.
How do you mitigate that?
(Describer) Smoke streams from a stack.
(Joe)
Wind energy is on
the rise across the country,
and increasingly its corporate
and residential customers
that are pushing
for that change.
(Varun)
The customer has
become an active participant,
and increasingly
that discussion
has taken the shape of, where
do we take the resources
and technologies we have
to bring more resilience
to the system and
do that in an environmentally
sustainable way?
(Joe)
But wind energy also just
makes sense and dollars for the
folks who have invested in it.
The cost of installing
and running a wind farm
has decreased significantly
in the past decade.
One study showed the
cost of wind energy
went down by almost
70% since 2010.
Generally, the more wind power,
the less expensive it gets.
That's because the
infrastructure that
brings the power to homes and
businesses across the state
is getting beefed up.
(Describer) Rai:
(Varun)
As you produce more,
you learn to do things better.
In academic language,
this is known as
learning by doing.
(Joe)
Most energy consumers
are likely not aware
of what is
powering their lives.
Power arrives at our
homes and places of work
seemingly by magic.
We don't have to consider
where it came from
or what went into
bringing it to us.
So let's get into that
for a second.
There's been a long trend
of: "burn thing,
make heat,
use heat to do work."
Gas, biomass, or coal is
burned to heat up water
to create steam and
that steam spins
a turbine, which powers
a generator that then
feeds energy into the grid.
(Describer) Walking between trees...
Wind energy is a kinetic
source of energy.
It's energy in motion, and it's
also a form of solar energy.
Now, wind occurs for a
bunch of different reasons,
and they all come
back to the sun.
Wind is the result of the sun
heating up parts of the Earth
and atmosphere differently
and the rotation
of the planet itself.
People figured out how to
convert that kinetic energy
from the wind into mechanical
energy centuries ago.
The windmill has been around
since at least the 9th century,
but the technology has
come a long way,
even in the last
couple of decades.
For one thing, modern
turbines are 15 times the size
of a traditional windmill.
(Describer) Jeff Hill:
(speaker)
It feels huge to be able
to see the expanse of it
across the Mesas.
(Joe)
That's Jeff Hill,
and he's out
at High Lonesome
Wind Farm in West Texas.
(Jeff)
This is a wind farm
of 164, 300 foot tall fully
autonomous robots
who track the wind,
determine the most
efficient way to capture
the energy from the wind, and
transform that into a power
that we can use as a people.
(Joe)
The property's about
200 square miles.
That's like just
under nine Manhattans.
(Jeff)
This land is mostly used
for ranching, sheep, cattle.
The farmers are able to
continue their same lifestyle
that they always have.
(Joe)
The turbines
take up less than 5%
of the total property,
but clearly
they're an impressive
part of the landscape.
(Jeff)
The swept diameter
is anywhere from 116 meters
to 132 meters.
(Joe)
Did you catch that?
That's longer than
a football field.
(Describer) From 123 to 144 yards.
[music playing]
The blades spin a shaft,
which turns about
12 to 18
revolutions per minute.
Then that rotor
shaft spins a series
of other gears in
the turbine,
which ramp that RPM
to about 1,200 to
1,500 revolutions per minute.
A generator inside
the turbine can then
start to make electricity.
(Describer) A man works between stopped blades.
(Jeff)
The electricity
is sent down tower
usually to some
sort of transformer
and then sent out through
a collection system,
which all converges
on a substation.
The substation then
collects it all
and puts it uniformly
into a larger transformer.
That larger transformer then
sends that out to the grid.
High Lonesome has
a total capacity
of 500 megawatts,
enough to power
173,000 homes for
the entire year.
But it's not just homes that
these farms are powering.
High Lonesome's owner Enel Green
Power made headlines in 2019
when a partnership it had formed
with a pretty big beer producer
resulted in this ad at
the 2019 Super Bowl.
Anheuser-Busch partnered
with the company
to generate 15 years'
worth of power out of one
of their Oklahoma wind farms.
(Describer) Rai:
(Varun)
Communities,
and increasingly companies,
are going directly to
production facilities
and signing up what are known
as long-term power purchase
agreements, or PPAs, where the
production from the farm--
all of it or a part of it is
directly assigned or credited
to these communities
or to the companies.
Having power purchase
agreements really
helps wind farms or solar
farms access capital
to fund the projects.
(Joe)
Enel has PPAs with
more than 20 different brands,
including one that
helped make
High Lonesome possible
by guaranteeing
that a chunk of the energy
from some of their turbines
would be purchased exclusively
for that company's operations.
(Varun)
PPAs are
a bottom-up change
without any policy or regulation
at the federal or state level.
(Joe)
It's exactly this kind
of creativity and innovation
that are going to help push us
into a new future in energy,
a future that includes an
ever-expanding need for energy
paired with an increasing
imperative to reduce emissions.
(Describer) Rai:
(Varun)
Diversity is
a very powerful thing.
Wind and solar energy
are intermittent sources.
You will not have wind
generation when the wind
is not blowing, you will not
have solar generation
when it is cloudy or dark.
(Describer) More turbines turn.
So how do you create a
portfolio of technologies
and infrastructure, including
thermal generation,
that is able to supply
reliable power to our masses
and for our economy
in an environmentally
responsible manner?
I'm very optimistic that
Texas, with its manpower,
with its technology,
with its history,
with its to-do and will-do,
can-do approach,
this will be a very, very
important part of the future
of energy system in the world.
(Describer) A view flies over the state capitol.
(Joe)
Being a Texan is
a certain kind of identity,
but that identity has
never meant just one thing,
and it's important to remember
just how quickly things
can change,
hopefully, for the better.
[music playing]
(Describer) As Joe stands on a bridge over the Colorado River, titles:
Host/Co-Writer: Joe Hanson, Ph.D.
Producer/Editor: Mimi Schiffman
Director of Photography: Yesenia Rodriguez
For PBS NC
Coordinating Producer: Nicole Eure
Associate Producer: Josh Clinard, Michelle Lotker
Executive Producer: Rachel Rainey
Produced by PBS NC for PBS
PBS North Carolina
Accessibility provided by the
U.S. Department of Education.
