When I commute to and from work these days, driving about thirty minutes along Interstate 10 just outside of San Antonio, Texas, I keep seeing these giant trucks hauling giant white blades. This morning, for example, I saw four trucks that looked exactly like this:

Over the past year, I expect I’ve passed well over 500 hundred of this sort of truck hauling this sort of load. I’m almost sure that I’ve been seeing blades for wind turbines, the devices that produce electricity from wind. They’re shaped a little differently from the blades I’m familiar with, but I can’t figure out what else I am seeing.
When I moved to Texas last year, I drove through West Texas, where I was surprised to see acres upon acres of wind farms. I must confess that, as a Californian for most of my life, I figured that Texas as an “oil only” energy state. Thus I wasn’t expecting lots of wind farms.
Well, I discovered, even more to my surprise, that Texas gets more electricity from wind than any other state, almost doubling the amount of wind-power generated in California. Moreover, Texas has the largest windfarm in the world.
I also learned that T. Boone Pickens, one of the world’s wealthiest people, is investing billions in Texas wind power. He’s also working hard to get American independent from foreign oil, with wind as a central element of “The Pickens Plan.”
So much for my California green pride and bias against Texas!  This state is leading the way in developing alternative energy sources. Who’d a thunk it?