Life is fairly simple for my wife Pat and me. We retired from the corporate world and sold our ranches, but are still active in many things such as writing western novels, working on the Springdale Rodeo, several writer organizations, my columns and I serve on Ozarks Electric Co-op Board as their President.
We drove to San Antonio to a national electric co-op directors meeting recently. At the meeting, men and women serving on the electric co-ops across the U.S. go to learn the problems we face as far as our nation goes on.
It’s a 10 hour drive to San Antonio, Texas, from northwest Arkansas. The news was calling for bad weather, but it looked clear going down. We arrived in Texas and the bad weather rushed down on us. Roads were closed and when the meeting was over other directors got flights back to Little Rock, Ark., with someone to take them home from there.
I found three days that looked like the roads would be open to the North Country, but just when I was ready to go home 5 inches of snow fell from Austin, Texas, to north Arkansas.
Nothing in this world is simple. This weather is past being fun or even nice. They shut down the entire city street in a town of 3 million people. I mean there was no traffic moving at all. At 2 p.m. they opened it back up. The ice melted on the streets. And the buses began to run again.
But north from Dallas, Texas, to home was more snow. There is little snow plow equipment in Texas or Oklahoma. So here momma and I sat. I was tired of hotel fare and the help knew us on a first name basis. The 10 day forecast said we would be here a while longer.
What did I learn about the electric business? Despite the government spending billions and billions on wind and solar? Besides this huge outlay of money, your tax money and all those windmills – they only supply 6/10 of 1 percent of our national power needs. That is when the wind is blowing.
Free energy, no way. All this talk about clean energy is a western movie set, a false front. Then, there are electric cars. I saw a picture of one with a bumper sticker, I am fueled by coal fired power plants.
Lucky for us, this recession has cut back growing demands for more energy. Between government bans and lawsuits by tree huggers, there are no new power plants being built. Power blackouts happened under the stress of unusually harsh weather, but it tells me we are about at the limit of electric production without new plants.
A nuclear permit for one requires 7 years, then that long to build one. They will be expensive. Why can’t they figure out less than 7 years? No answers. But, there are thousands of directors of rural electric co-ops that are concerned about providing dependable power, at affordable costs to their members with safety in mind.
Let’s hope this weather lets up and makes way for you all that are busy with spring calving. God bless you,
Western novelist Dusty Richards and his wife Pat live on Beaver Lake in northwest Arkansas. For more information about his books you can email Dusty by visiting www.ozarksfn.com and clicking on ‘Contact Us’ or call 1-866-532-1960.
