HORACE MCQUEEN: “Green” Energy Is Not So Green!
Seems so much today is driven by greed. The folks who have made themselves fortunes in wind energy and producing ethanol are still banking their windfalls. This the big windmills, with their vanes slowing turning in the wind, are an absolute rip off of our tax dollars. Without the subsidies to the companies owning the mills, there would be no electricity generated by the monstrosity. Those subsidies to the windmill industry are kin to those paid to the plant owners churning out unwanted ethanol fuel. The ethanol plants have overproduced their product and now we are sending the excess to other countries at a loss—not to the producer, but to the taxpayers who went along with the program.
Here at home, a multi-million investment was made in plants to generate electricity from wood chips, tree limbs, hay and other plant-based waste. Nope that didn’t work either. Across the country most of these plants have shut the doors. But as long as “Uncle Sam” is footing the bill for building the plants, there’s not much discussion about their ceasing to operate.
The problem with wild or feral hogs continues to fester. Pastures are hit hard — with some reporting hundreds of hog wallow holes on every acre and putting a hurt on haying and even grazing. Hog hunters love the sorry porkers — while landowners just want some relief. Last year an out-of-state company came to Texas promoting a warfarin-based feed that would eradicate the hog population. Only problem is that Warfarin had too many potential problems and was denied for landowner use. Sodium nitrite — a concoction used to cure meats for human consumption—is the latest product being tested for hog control.
Scientists have been working on a sodium nitrate base product and are now doing field tests in Central Texas and in Alabama. Results of these first tests are due soon and could prove another tool for use by landowners. We know there are not enough hog traps, enough helicopter hunters, and enough hog dogs to keep the hogs from multiplying. Maybe the sodium nitrite will prove a solution!
