Texas rancher John Davis, centre, and his son Samuel, right, with RAPAD deputy CEO Morgan Gronold during renewable energy briefings in Brisbane yesterday

For United States livestock producer John Davis, establishing wind turbines on his Texas ranchland for renewable energy generation was like ‘striking wind, instead of striking oil.’

Mr Davis and his son Samuel were part of a small delegation of Texas landholders, lawyers and academics visiting Queensland this week, as part of a process to better understand and navigate the relationships between landholders focussed on traditional land use, and the emerging renewables sector.

For Texan landholders involved in wind turbines and other renewables, the process is clearly and squarely about economic and regional development and additional revenue streams, rather than any particular ‘green agenda,’ or renewable energy targets like those seen in Australia.

The tour was initiated through RAPAD, the  Remote Area Planning and Development Board, which is a collaboration of seven vast, remote Queensland Regional Councils – Barcoo, Blackall-Tambo, Boulia, Diamantina, Longreach, Winton and Barcaldine. The seven work together to achieve economies of scale for economic development, roads, water, pest and weed control and other objectives.

A delegation led by RAPAD visited Texas (plus Nevada for solar) earlier this year in the first stage of the process. The primary purpose was to determine whether the renewables industry in the region was ‘just BS’, or whether they were actually delivering economic and social outcomes for rural communities.

RAPAD’s energy industry journey started in 2017, around the time the region was first looking to diversify its agriculture-heavy economy, the organisation’s deputy chief executive Morgan Gronold told Beef Central yesterday.

While faced with being “in the middle of nowhere,” it worked with the Regional Australia Institute, exploring ways to diversify from the region’s primary agricultural focus. Renewables was quickly identified as a prospect, as other schemes like the CopperString 2032 project (high voltage electricity transmission from Townsville to Mt Isa) emerged.

“Being in the middle of nowhere, we think there are opportunities in the RAPAD region in renewables,” Mr Gronold said. “This was about finding ways to employ another 30 or 40 people in a town like Barcaldine, who get paid every fortnight – regardless of whether it rains or not – and helps underpin and develop the local economy.”

Texas hot-spot

In seeking some guidance, RAPAD started looking at where similar renewables projects were unfolding around the world – quickly ruling out Europe, and regions like California, but persistently coming back to Texas, where geography, weather, land-use and politics are somewhat similar to Central Western Queensland.

While Texas is the home of the enormous US oil and gas industries, there are in fact large parts of the state where no fossil fuels are found. As a result, Texas is now arguably the biggest renewable state in the world, being four times larger than the next largest US state for wind power generation, and surpassing California in solar and battery storage.

In the West Texas county of Sweetwater, for example, there are now 2000 wind turbines in operation. The population of Sweetwater has grown to 10,000 people, largely driven by the wind power industry. Businesses have sprung-up, specifically to provide components, goods and services for the local renewable energy industry.

So how did west Texas landholders like John Davis, who have no particular ‘green’ agenda and love drilling for oil and gas, end up with a footprint in renewables?

“Much like inland Australia, we have a lot of wind, sun and land,” was his response.

“For us, it was about how we could utilise those three resources to derive an income. And remember – we’d been using renewables (in the form of windmills to pump stock water) for generations.”

Unlike parts of Australia, there is presently no mandate in Texas to achieve any set levels of renewable energy any time soon, meaning any projects have had to to stand solely on commercial forces.

John Davis hosts RAPAD visitors to his West Texas ranch earlier this year. Note two of his seven wind turbines in the background

Transmission highways

An important precursor to the Texas renewables development was the establishment in the early 2000s of what’s known as Crez Lines – some 5600km of transmission lines to deliver power generated from solar and other remote renewables projects to the larger population centres like Dallas and Austin. One Australian parallel has been the CopperString 2032 high voltage line project between Townsville and Mt Isa mentioned above, originally built by private enterprise, but now government-owned.

The Texas Crez Lines project was regarded as adventurous and bold when first launched in the early 2000s, but the lines are now basically filled to operating capacity, much of it with renewably-generated power.

“The great thing about power transmission lines is that they are agnostic,” Beef Central heard during yesterday’s briefing. “You can plug in coal-powered, nuclear, solar or wind-driven power, and transport it along the same lines. It’s just a highway.”

Five years of operations

John Davis’s ranch spans Menard/Concho Counties, part of which is included in Southern Power’s Cactus Flats Wind Energy project, launched in 2018, designed to generate up to 148 megawatts of power for use in nearby metropolitan areas.

Concho Country was one of the first in the region to encourage wind turbine development, while neighbouring Menard Country has been less receptive.

The Davis ranch is used to raise Wagyu cattle, sheep and goats, as well as hosting game hunting for sporting shooters. Mr Davis was a member of the Texas Legislature (state government) for 16 years, giving him both a landholder’s as well as a legislator’s perspective on renewables. He also sits on a lobby group committee called Conservative Texans for Energy Innovation.

“When the renewables company first approached us about turbines, we turned them down,” Mr Davis said.

“Why? Because we’d never had turbines in the past, they were an unknown, and there were the visual aspects,” he said. “After their third visit and more talk, because we are in a prime location, we decided to look at it. Today, I actually think they look majestic, futuristic and progressive.”

Now in its fifth year, the Davis family ranch now hosts seven wind turbines as part of the Cactus Flat windfarm cluster of 43, with much of the renewable energy bought by General Motors’ vehicle manufacturing business.

Mr Davis estimated that the income from the ranch was now 40pc derived from livestock, 40pc from wind power generation and 20pc from recreational activity including hunting. But to put that into better context, income from the towers had already helped grow the productivity of the livestock enterprise, through better fencing and waters and otyher infrastructure.

He said no land was taken out of production by the presence of the towers, meaning his livestock and hosted hunting activities were basically unaffected. “It all works in harmony,” he said.

The current contract for the turbines is for 30 years, with options for another ten years, repeated twice. Royalty adjustments are made every five years, and have recently gone up – based on market prices for the renewable power and oil, and the volume of power generated from the sites, with a ‘floor-price’ built in.

Development of strong contracts to protect Texas landowners have been driven by another member of the tour group, lawyer Rob Wetsel.

Counties hold divergent views – but some in desperate need are missing out

While the Davis family has neighbours who would like to embrace wind power generation, their land is just over the county border in Menard, which is less proactive than their own Concho Country over installations.

“Despite that, there’s not much economic development going on. Of the 254 counties in Texas, Menard is about the fifth poorest,” Mr Davis said.

The mentality of the leaders was the reason he put forward for the contrasting approach to renewables between Menard and Concho counties. “Their view was, ‘We’ve been ranching for generations – we don‘t want to change anything,” he said.

Asked whether the presence (or absence) of renewables had already impacted local land values, Mr Davis said it had not, to this point.

He said the relationship between the renewable energy companies and landholders continued to grow, after five years of local operations.

“It’s about education and understanding, on both sides,” he said. “Its turning out to be expansion – it’s not about ‘either/or’, but how we can each complement each other.

“We’ll always need fossil fuels – everything from roads to your shirt relies on it, but it all works in harmony. We don’t need misinformation from people to discourage it. It can work in harmony – in our case food (lamb and goatmeat), fibre (mohair and wool), and energy – all in synergy.”

In Texas’s case, while there is now considerable renewable energy ‘in the system’ at any one time, that had not been mandated or set as a legislated objective, but was simply commercial forces of supply and demand for renewable energy.

Because many Texas legislators were influenced by oil and gas funding powers, there had been some push-back against renewables in the early stages, because of concerns that wind turbines might inhibit gas or oil projects in some way. “But over time, they (plus many conservative landholders) have seen that it can all work together. In fact renewables allows us and others to stay in ranching, together with helping local education and employment,” he said.

“And its continuing to grow. There’s more mills going in now, and more people are accepting it – and the royalties are good.”

One solution where opposition was raised about local towers might be some form of sharing of royalty revenue with a neighbour who might have objections about turbines. Another option might be some funds directed into a local community fund.

“You might have a neighbour a mile or two away, who objects to the sight of the towers. But those objections might decline, if there is some nearby ‘catchment area’ which also shares in some of the royalty benefit, without actually hosting mills. Call it community favour, or goodwill.”

Even neighbouring Menard Country, which has so far resisted supporting wind energy projects, is now looking at prospects, having seen the influence in surrounding counties.

“It’s about determining what you land can produce for you; how it can make yours and your children’s and grandchildren’s lives better,” Mr Davis said.

Even in parts of Texas well endowed with valuable gas and oil, renewables projects are springing up.

In some parts of Texas, landholders and others now talk about under the ground income (gas and oil), on the ground income (livestock production) and above the ground (renewables like wind and solar).

“To us they are all just resources – it doesn’t matter whether it’s oil and gas, pasture, geo-thermal or wind – they’re all just resources that God’s given us – so let’s use them.”

While his own business was currently only focussed on wind turbines, Mr Davis said he would love to also embrace solar if the opportunity arose.

“It pays even better, per acre/year, and solar is ultimately multi-purpose – you can still run sheep underneath.”

While his Australian visit was still only in its early stages, he said he saw a lot of similarities with what’s happening in agriculture back in Texas.

“Y’all have an ideal setup for wind and or solar,” he said. “Your inland areas can become the power generators for the bigger population communities on the coast.”

Inland communities like Longreach and Barcaldine have been ‘exporters’ (in the form of meat and wool) for more than a century, but now the opportunity had arisen to also ‘export’ renewable energy.

“To me, it’s a no brainer,” Mr Davis said.

• The Texas tour group will participate in a renewables energy development forum being staged in Barcaldine later this week.