A couple of months ago,
I called out Meredith Baxter Birney, I mean Meredith Lawrence, of the Dallas Observer for writing a piece about a proposed new wind farm in Cooke County, a piece that had a high ignorance level, IMO. I followed up a month later with
a second article touching on tangental and additional issues.
I had speculated at the time that part of the issue was that some opponents have natural-gas leases and are afraid yet another wind farm (there's two in the Muenster portion of the area already) would further drive down the lease money they get. (Southwest Cooke County and southeast Montague County, the Saint Jo area, are the northern end of the Barnett Shale.)
Well, multiple things have added to that.
Following up on an addition I had to that original piece, for the next two months since October, Comptroller Glenn Hegar has shows production taxes from natural gas continue to fall. That means prices are down in general. Plus, production in Cooke County's been off slightly since last spring.
And, there's more.
One independent driller would like to see the RRC
do its job on natural gas flaring, with the hope that would slow drilling enough on oil to prop the price up more, and also help natural gas prices. That said, if the indy gets his wish, MORE natural gas from the Permian means gas prices elsewhere (as in the Barnett Shale) go even deeper in the terlet. Per page 4 of
the Dallas Fed's quarterly report, spot prices for gas aren't expected to get much better next year. (Neither is oil.) That said, one commenter on page 7 says that much of this is one-time flaring and that more Permian gas WILL come onstream later this year. At the Houston Chronicle, though focused more on oil, Chris Tomlinson had a recent business column about this same issue. He said a "mini-slump" is probably the
best that producers should hope for this year. He notes the Permian is overproducing, that many CEOs are being paid for wells drilled and so have financial incentives to overproduce, and more.
In addition, as of earlier this month, for four months in a row, Comptroller Glenn Hegar's office reported that year-over-year monthly natural gas production taxes were down in the range of 30 percent.
So, the fears are there.
And, I have confirmed that at least one of the more vocal Muenster-area opponents does have gas leases, and at a substantial level.
As I said before, it's all about whose ox is being gored.
That said, other opponents, like Jared Groce, may be right on the land value issue.
EDP claims that the wind farms actually can boost land value. Well, sure, if you're taking in the value of the turbines, even though they're owned by EDP. But, at the same time, it may indeed depress the value on some other parcels in the area, while leaving yet others basically unchanged, with the result that overall value is actually up slightly.
But? That's capitalism, ain't it? And, as for tax breaks for wind turbines? What about the tax breaks for oil, and for the gas that's in the terlet?
So, my guess is that, like Caesar's Gaul, opposition is divided into three parts: one-third gas leaseholders, one-third a mix of developers and the people buying country sprawl from them, and one-third actual farmers and ranchers. Each has its own kind and degree of hypocrisy and fatted calves cum gored oxen.
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As for Ms. Lawrence,
a new piece of hers where she talks about renewables passing coal in Texas energy production does give a small bit of indication that she now knows a small bit about natural gas. Next, perhaps you can talk about how Texas' tax laws and other issues are anti-solar, especially anti-rooftop solar, even as you tout solar's growth.
