Think about truman for a minute. Truman was an oldfashioned democrat who belong to every known club in the home town in missouri. He was a back slapper. He despised harry truman. John Kenneth Galbraith despised harry truman. They wanted him off the ticket in 1948. Even though they had no idea what eisenhower represented, but he wasnt truman. Truman was normal and they didnt want that. Kennedys father hadnt been very pleasant in world war ii. Robert kennedy worked for joe mccarthy. So what was so appealing about this was he wasnt ordinary. He didnt come out of the middle class. He represented the something above elevating the american pace. The big changes the addition of the publicsector liberalism. As we know it is a force collapsed with the tromping of mcgovern as some and then Ronald Reagan electoral victories in the 1980s. But the liberalism reconstruct itself when labor reconstructs itself around the public sector. Thats why i say what happened in new york is an expression of this larger trend. The one that created made it into the force and said and i quoted in the book said quite correctly its the single most powerful Political Force in the united states. He is right and we will have to deal with this in the future. Please join me in the thinking fred. [applause] hes could be signing books outside and for the cspan audience, you can buy this on amazon not come to the come amazon. Com. From the 18th annual texas book festival in austin, kate galbrath discuss the wind Power Industry in texas and their book the great texas wind rushed. This is about 45 minutes. Hello and welcome to the texas book festival discussion of the great texas wind rush how george bush, ann richards and a bunch of tinkerers helped win the race to win the power. With authors Kate Galbraith and asher price. My name is Hillary Olson and i will be moderating the discussion this afternoon. Ayman geologist at texas austin and before we start i want to say a few words about the festival although the mission of the festival was to celebrate books and authors i want to emphasize that it also benefits texas Public Libraries and literacy across the state. Proceeds from the sale of all books and merchandise benefit these efforts and since 1995, the festival has contributed more than 2. 5 million to libraries throughout the state. You can participate in the work through purchasing this dhaka at festival today. So, 15 minutes after the end of the session, the authors will sign their books on congress avenue between tenth and 11th street. Now its my honor to introduce the authors of this very interesting book. Kate galbraith is an energy and environmental journalist whos worked at the texas tribune, the New York Times and the economist. Asher price has been an energy and environmental reporter for the Austin American statesman since 2006. Im going to start by turning over to the two authors to tell us a little bit about their book. Thanks to the book festival for having us and cspan2 per hosting this event. We are the authors of the great texas wind rushed the teams to get at the irony of how a state like texas which is an oil and gas state came to be the leader in wind power. The challenge for us is the same we have in the panel which is how do you make a story about wind power where the tank . I told the panel this would be the most raucous panel ever on cspan2. What we decided to do is tell the story through characters. We have a priest for home conservation was second and we had a music promoter from austin who went back up to his home town and started one of the First Wind Farms in the state so we have a set of characters and one of them are here today. Can you may be stand up these please . [applause] it attracts how wind power moves from being an alternative source of power source to big business and the characters involved in that, but it also takes a look kind of inside look at the back room politics and fulfill the capitol to forge certain compromises, legislative compromises that got wind energy off the ground in the 1990s so thats where and how richards and george bush coming to the dhaka book. We wanted to try to capture that. The story goes back to the 19th century, the water mills as im sure you have seen and it continues on through the Great Depression when a lot of people were putting up when the chargers to light their farms tend when the wind had become an electricity source and the administration roosevelt comes along and centralized power and every farmer and rancher wants it and it essentially knocks out when the power until the 1970s when we have the Great Energy Crisis and people start looking to find alternatives out in the panhandle was founded in 1977 and then michael put the First Wind Farm in texas in tampa in his hometown in 1981. If of oil and gas prices fall and theres little interest in alternatives and the senate picks backup when the political interest increases so it is a story that has spanned four decades and its continuing today. Today texas has more than 12,000 megawatts of wind compared to just very little a decade or more ago. California is the secondbiggest state with less than half of the amount texas has and about 9 of the electricity came from wind power so its a very substantial power source and its growing. I have a question to followup. The book is an overarching character and theres great descriptions. Theres people that are trying to harness it and yet it seems cantankerous throughout the book and i wonder if you can read some of the descriptions you have to give us a sense of the character i will read a little bit near the beginning of the book we write about the Natural History of texas that made it such a fitting place for wind power. The space was moved to make it just right. Now it is on landscape as the wave of wandsworth. There was a giant ocean that was over what is now known as texas. The Highway Department in a stone emptiness sets this be in command at the in these parts and then it seems because one has to be set. It is as broad as an airport runway and the asphalt short of melting away into the dirt. The fields had the wind. The draft on the land and how they describe the feeling of bonding along the west texas roads in his memoir. So relentless was the wind that was said to render women crazy. In the first pages, a melodramatic 1925 novel the 18yearold arias as blue as periwinkle, cheeks delicately paint. The train bound to sweep water to be a governor s. Learn from a passenger of the hard life. They say the west is a good enough for a man or dhaka with no place for a woman or a cat. But why . The wind is the worst thing. She drew a sigh. That is nothing to be afraid of. She went on as if she hadnt spoken. It is it drives a person can until its brown and as tough as leather and puts her eyes out and gets on her nerves with its constant blowing and it makes her irritable and jumpy. And i want to say by the way that was written by a woman [laughter] in 1927 would. After that publication, caldwell from the high plains of the texas panhandle where the wind blow as relentlessly as those around sweetwater remember being haunted by the stories of the pioneer women driven mad by the wind. It would disfigure trees, they were permanently like women hunched back to from and have a strain of drawing water from the well. Cattle could die come in healing snows the blue horizontally with tremendous force during a blizzard and in the 1930s the had the territory the wind was so bad and the land was so dry that they were scooped up and send swirling across the nation. The trees were such a rarity a kid might name them in the words of one texas writer. So you have the sense of how it not only shaped the landscape but also literature about texas. One of the things we did in the book is about picking and choosing little bits from the poets and writers where the wind kind of crops up and to give them a sense of what a force it is. One of the favorite things i learned as kids and west texas actually go out on bikes and tied sales on to their wrists and off they go. It sounds absolutely marvelous. By the mid 90s there is a point in our book they put up the most commercial scale wind in texas they put that in 1995. Its a very small wind farm compared to today. Six months later what happens . This was a storm that was said to be overturning the tractor trailers and their wreaked havoc on everything including this wind farm and what they said at the end is some of the turbines fell down of course and they said i guess we know its windy. Thank you. So just thinking about the character of the wind in the book how do you see that as a comparison contrast to some of your human characters in the dhaka. One of the things you talk about is the importance of the quality of perseverance and certainly the wind is something that is persistent. Can you speak about some of the characters in your book and read some passages that would describe them for the audience . Anyone who felt the west texas wind is like e unef okay i got. But it also characterizes some of the folks in our book because some of them started tinkering around with this technology in the 70s and the persevered through the 80s when the federal government and the state of texas government and everybody else lost interest in wind power, but they hung on and by the 1990s when the Democratic Administration that and richards and so on came into power, they got a Second Chance so they hadnt forgot about the technology. Im just going to read a passage that was mentioned by one of our favorite characters in the book. In early 1982, he puts out several turbines besides his church the football field in texas, texas churches tough football fields evidently. So his father had built a when the electric generator to create a light for the family and he was trying to make the wind turbine spent in the powerful wind of west texas as the Energy Crisis intensified and again this is the late 70s, early 80s. He wasnt in the Research Business though. He wanted to put the turbines to use for god. Jason first heard the call of the lord as a fifth grader. During most months he helped their father on their ranch but that particular summer in the 1940s he had broken his ankle, cant remember how he and his parents sent him to bible camp. At recess he was out on the right field on crutches when the pastor came to bat. The lord tells me he loves me and he loves you. That has never left me. So he really believed that saving energy and alternative energy was essentially next to godliness. He said we are supposed to be custodians of gods creation but churches are among any building and again, he puts up this small wind farm in early 1982 and he had spent weeks prior to that checking the current. On along tale he was tying streamers every 5 feet and then like ben franklin he flew a kite over the property figuring out the best site for the turbine. They needed to have plenty of space around them so the top of the blade wouldnt hit anything if they had to if they fell and they wouldnt interfere with each others land. If you have an object will cause turbulence 40 feet downstream. And in 2011 a vigorous 17yearold with coveralls that made him look like an auto mechanic had st. Benedict on gold chain around his neck. Finally as i said he settled on putting thats one turbine behind the church as football fields. They were taller than anything around and he planted three of them each 60 feet tall along the sideline and onefourth of one behind the and the sound. Power could be fed to the citys electric grid. The last turbine went in last next to the church and it stood 80 feet tall. It generated enough electricity to cover a quarter of the needs in the school and the convocation. Everybody going down bloop could see the generators for a mile away. He was one of those that started this in the Energy Crisis and held on and the turbines were up for some time. James didnt remain at the convocation forever and they are still the gravestone markers. One of the things i was struck by in reporting this book was seeing these people out in the hinterlands who were so close to the ground that is for the earth, the wind, the forces in that shape people who dont live in cities and i should make a confession that neither kate nara i have the heads but to write a book about Wind Turbines in texas. For me i grew up on the tenth story Apartment Building and water and wind and rain, these are things worth carrying about. You hear about flooding on the mississippi in the evening news and then you turn the channel. Being a reporter here in texas ifc much more intimately this relationship between human beings and things like wind and how you endorse such force is and how you can exploit them which is one of the fascinating things about texans who were selfsufficient not just by nature which is a lot of them think of themselves, by necessity. So that kind of strain of soft efficiency once wrote the book and through a lot of the characters we write about. I never set foot in texas until 2005i came as the correspondent for the economist from london. It was a Culture Shock as well as a weather shot. One of my stories was i learned at that time what i thought of as the oil and gas state was passing in california to become number one in wind power has a century before or a little hot less. It used to be number one and zero leal and now of course texas is. So i went out to this town in west texas. Everything in this book is a long drive. I was fascinated by this contradiction that its not really a contradiction at all of paabo oil and gas state came to the top and was found about the story is i also got to talk to Jerry Patterson whos the current land commissioner and they know what the journalists call a bit of a quote machine. At that time he was interested in leasing out the state planned offshore for the wind projects just as it is leased for the oil rigs so i asked about the environmentalist concerns that these offshore turbines might lie in the path of a major fly away from mexico and he said to me sure but at the end of the day we will have smarter birds. [laughter] i thought this is just a dream. Evolution texas style. [laughter] since you brought up the oil and gas industry, just briefly and then we will open up for questions from the audience. I want to ask if you can kind of talk a little bit about some similarities and differences you talked about the two industries may be related to the economic motivators and business cycles. We are all familiar with the boom and bust of the oil and gas industry. Its interesting in the book how they affected each other over the history of one development in the state. Could you speak a little bit to that . This is the late 90s folks are looking at a wind turbine in texas someone evidently remarked now we control above the ground as well as below. This is the sort of texas mentality they think of themselves as an energy state and there are many complementaries between leal and gas land owners and west texas that are primed more so than other states to understand the idea of royalties so when the production started declining in the late 1990s, they were ready for something else. They were used to Getting Energy money from their land and they thought the wind was a good idea so there were folks who have worked in the business and also work in the wind business. A fellow, father sun team who makes the turbines in the late 70s near Wichita Falls near boomtown usa, a carter sr. His father was in the oil business so that gave them a heritage of kind of tinkering around liking to produce energy and when the crisis comes along the think what other Energy Sources can we turn to. I will amplify the book from the Energy Expert he says in texas because we dont care about the environment we are actually able to do good things for the environment. Thank you guys very much. Now we are going to open it up to some questions from the audience so if you would come up and get in line behind the microphone we will take you one at a time. Please. Thanks for being here to both of you. You mentioned at the beginning that 9 of our states power comes from wind, a huge figure and during the course of this talk and and and what you discover the physical factors, even legal and cultural factors that helped us become a state so far ahead of other states on this. To you think other states could derive their power as a share from wind and related to that has the fact this is this state has gone so far as wind has that proven as an example to any other states that if they can do and we can do it too. Texas is on little bit unique. Is a laboratory for wind power and Everything Else because we have our own grid and there are basically three griggs in the lower 48, east, west and texas those that means texas is in a relatively unique position for being selfcontained and having to rely on itself for its power. And so i think the fact that texas built out wind really gave some heart to other states that were interested in winter but not quite willing to bite. We had the First Renewable Energy mandate, one of the First Renewable Energy mandates in the country that actually worked and that was signed by the legislature, signed by george bush in 1999 as a mega electric deregulation so i think the texas experience helped to scale up, california has done a little bit of that in thes, by the ladys california had 90 of the worlds wind capacity, as they had some problems, among other things tax credits that didnt work so texas looked at california and said we see what went wrong and we are not going to do that and when texas bills out wind other states thought they could do it as well. I want to add to that one of the interesting things mentioned, it was called a renewable portfolio standard which is led us lead judges late of speak for a mandate, legislature amended utilities as part of a big legislative compromise. Was just a small thing that turned out to be important, utilities shall get a certain amount of electricity from Renewable Energy which is wind power. And timmy, the last of the book is fascinating because it is a real irony is that you have a libertarian minded read state mike texas and from on high theres almost a chinese five year plan for getting a certain amount of electricity from this renewable source. We draw the reality of why that happens to be the case which involves some important political donors to the George Bush Administration when he was governor. George bushs aspiration to be president , to build whatever kind of environmental record might, and sells in some ways texas is a model for these other states if you can do a kind of mandate here you shouldnt be able to do it in other places but texas also has its own aspect, its own peculiar history that distinguish it. I will lead briefly that a mandate, Renewable Energy mandated just about any other kind of mandate is not so popular these days as it was 15 years ago. Is fascinating about how republican politicians were behind the mandate 15 years ago, is john kerry going to point to texas as the leader in wind energy or in the republican primary will come out that it is part of the mandate . So how politicians in this state running for statewide office or National Office think about wind energy, it will be interesting over the next year or two. Following up on that could you talk about the business of wind, i hear Different Things but is it really viable. In other words without tax credits and incentives and mandates from on high, would it even exists . Is it a viable financially viable think . Where is that going to go . Talk about the business of wind. Great question, very complicated question. One thing we might see at the end of this year is how much is built independently because there is an important general tax credit due to expire at the end of this year and the wind industry says that if this tax credit expires they will struggle to build wind farms. This tax credit is almost expired for quite some time. I am taking a wait and see attitude because the industry has an incentive to how and what this tax credit should be extended, how much they will continue to build if it expires. I think we will see. One of the untold features of texas wind, i think, is a huge build out of transmission lines to the remote areas of west texas and so on where a lot of the wind farms exist. There are also wind farms close it to the gulf coast that work all little better with the grid but the state is spending 6. 81 billion. You guys, everyone in texas is spending 6. 8 billion to build out these lines, when they approve the lines in 2008 they paid it as 5 billion and it crept up and so i think now of course they say these lines will help power the oil and gas Drilling Operations in the midland basin area but that is a really fascinating story. It will be several dollars a month on everyones electricity bill coming soon to your home and we will see how that plays out. One other quick thing, the viability of wind is dependent on the price of other forms of energy sell natural gas is quite volatile. I was in tampa, in the panhandle. I heard t. Boone pickens, a savvy investor talkedabout 5 or 6 years ago, his four years ago maybe, his plan for building a giant wind farm in the tampa area. He was meeting with the townspeople and they were suspicious about whether this would come to fruition and others were suspicious how loud with these turbines be and he said i dont know. Do you like the sound of money in your pockets . He meant you would be getting royalties from the electricity generated by these turbines. As it happened, because of changes in the price of natural gas, basically come as of that huge wind farm he planned to build hasnt happened, hasnt materialized. It is a complicated interaction between wind and natural gas. You could have a whole panel on it but we wont today. I would like to thank you for writing this book and i look forward to it being a series and i hope the second book in your series will be that texas solar rushed. Do you have any insight on that . Solar is always very interesting. Would like to get some of the mandates and those types of things that win. Com kenna 15 years ago but political climate, the Energy Climate has changed so that that is unlikely. Trying to get a non wind mandate or some kind of other incentives for solar power that has been unsuccessful so far but on the other hand san antonio is taking a lead in solar power, building on a huge amount of solar and solar works better for the texas grid. I do here solar advocates saying lets consider the entirety of what solar does for the grid, the fact that the sun shines just when we need our air conditioners, using a ton of power so they would like to see some pricing mechanism potentially that reflect a that some we will see, we will check back in in five years. Could you comment on the significance to the future development of wind power as a source of energy for this state and elsewhere the development of more efficient storage facilities, bigger batteries or what ever, other possibilities might be. In a nut shell, the question if you could hear it was about the potential for storage of wind power comment and how will that shape the future of the wind power. A lot of these turbines are in remote parts of texas and we consume energy in the central part of the state, boston and dallas and houston, so the wind tends to be on these transmission lines. One of the problems with coastal wind is the wind often blows when we dont need it most so hot summer days when you are setting your airconditioner on high, the question becomes how do you score that power and use it when you need it. People, smart people have been working on this problem for decades. They still havent solved it. There are all kinds of experiments going on. Given the way our society has been going last 50 years i suspect someone will solve this in a costeffective way sometime, not her only making energy more attractive ted is the long and short of that. Duke energy, which is a utility, has a significant battery project, beside a wind farm the operate in west texas the justice began operating in january. I havent checked on it recently but also when that the cats say that you dont necessarily need as much Energy Storage as you would think because if you disperse Wind Turbines everywhere which of course they would like to do then the wind will surely be blowing somewhere even if it is not in another place, do we have that capability, in texas, the coastal wind farms do record she much better with the grid and do we have that kind of spacing in texas . I dont know but naturally if the wind is blowing in north dakota, not blowing in oklahoma maybe something will leave that out. I was Public Information director at the texas general land dagestan 90s, the inception of the state involvement in wind farms in west texas, Delaware Mountains, governor ann richards and land commissioner gerry marron. I have a question. I talked a couple weeks ago about an incident out there in the inception of the wind farm, Delaware Mountains, you might tell about the big enemy of wind farming is no wind. But the question i have is to the Wind Power Companies have the power of Eminent Domain . Thank you for the question. Let me just address the episode ron brings up which we write about in the book. The first major commercial windfarm was in the Delaware Mountains which is in far west texas north of i can and if you were to more or less go north of the big bend of the above i can, you get to the Delaware Mountains it is , you get to the Delaware Mountains it isten , you get to the Delaware Mountains it is a very windy place. When they had the christening of the wind farm there was no wind that day. They tried to find the windiest site in texas and when they had the Opening Ceremony and six months later, too much wind. There is a great bit of reporting where the people