Yep. He's near Serenada, TX. Looks like a few housing developments, and an airport, but I guess not too far from Austin (if you have a car)
LMAO at the phrase, "If you have a car!"
Yes everyone has cars. Even teenagers! And that is really just a suburb outside of Austin. It only looks flat but it's on the edge of the hill country. There are lakes and rivers, trees, hills. He is a really easy drive to Austin, Dallas, San Antonio, and not to far to Houston.
Really, don't fret for him!
Ah, awesome! So thanks to you guys, we have a place where our "intelligent," "educated," "Ivy League" created technologies can be built and tested on cheap land by cheap "redneck moron" labor. Thanks!
(j/k of course. Austin makes some tech and science stuff to sometimes)
East Coaster's do have a hard on for Austin. Yes there is some tech there, but it's not like they put men on the moon or anything.
But really that was my point about technology. I doesn't matter how intelligent your engineers are, if they can't build anything. Last I heard the "Green" mountain paradise of Vermont had exactly one windmill. And they were complaining that it was too noisy! Massachusetts is busy litigating to see if they can build windmills off the coast.
Texas has an open invitation for anyone who wants to build offshore wind farms. It doesn't even require federal permits. This was a really good article on understanding Green Technology and Texas.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/solar-wind/4338280And that is the curious paradox of Texas: While seemingly more virtuous states labor over environmental impact assessments, Texans see a business opportunity and grab it--and so could very well end up leading the nation in clean energy. "In Texas, because we don't care about the environment, we're actually able to do things that are good for the environment," says Michael Webber, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Texas at Austin. "It's the most ironic, preposterous situation. If you want to build a wind farm, you just build it."
On private land, wind developers simply make a deal with landowners and pay them a royalty. But there's no siting review process for wind farms on state lands, either. Plus, the state's boundary extends 10.3 miles from the coast, a stipulation made by Sam Houston, Texas's president, before the republic joined the United States in 1845. Federal waters off all other coastal states begin 3 miles offshore, which means wind projects beyond that point--such as Cape Wind, which was proposed for Nantucket Sound in Massachusetts in 2001--fall under the jurisdiction of the Minerals Management Service.
"If you'd like to build a wind farm off the coast of Texas, you only have to deal with the Texas General Land Office, and we're a very eager leaser," Jim Suydam, the office's press secretary, says. "My boss is a Texas Republican. He's an old Marine lieutenant colonel who carries a gun in his boot. But you'll find no bigger proponent of offshore wind power, because he sees it as a vital part of a diversified revenue stream for public education."
Offshore oil and gas production have contributed $6 billion to the Texas Permanent School Fund since it was established in 1854--but that source of income won't rise forever, Suydam says. So this summer the Texas General Land Office signed two offshore wind leases with Houston-based Baryonyx; they were the state's sixth and seventh. When the company goes into production, the state will take a cut--and resell the power. "It's different than in California, where it's all about carbon emissions," Suydam says. "Here it's all about making money."
