Texas has become a leader in — are you ready for this? — green energy.

Those are the findings of a new book, “The Great Texas Wind Rush,” that details how Texas has become a pre-eminent producer of wind energy.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2013/07/05/how-texas-won-the-race-to-harness-the-wind/#more-29422

As a resident of arguably the windiest place on Planet Earth, I welcome this revelation by reporters Kate Galbraith and Asher Price, authors of the book.

The wind energy boom has yet to develop fully in the Texas Panhandle. But will testify to what I’ve witnessed over recent years across our vast landscape: the emergence of many hundreds of wind turbines whirling in the incessant wind that sweeps the region almost non-stop.

I realize that wind energy remains a bit expensive to produce, compared to fossil fuels. But once the technology is developed, perfected and made more efficient, there perhaps can be no greater boon to the nation’s energy policy that wind.

It’s plentiful, definitely renewable and clean.

As reported by State Impact, a reporting project of National Public Radio:

“Those early years of ‘windcatting,’ as the two describe it in their book, were full of trial and error. Lighting strikes, blade malfunctions, faulty designs. Osbourne ‘actually hired a couple of musicians, being an Armadillo type, to go up and fix them,’ Galbraith says. ‘It’s fascinating how intertwined the music scene in Texas is with wind.’ But in part thanks to their early efforts, wind eventually took hold in Texas.

“Another factor that played into Texas becoming a wind leader were the state’s vast expanses of private property, with landowners willing to lease it out, as they had become accustomed to during earlier years of oil and gas drilling. ‘People that lived in these far-flung areas, they were often independent types, tinkerers, they new how to work machinery,’ Galbraith says. ‘And they were used to the idea of people coming, knocking on their door, and asking to create some energy. Usually, it was, ‘Let’s drill here,’ but in this new case it was wind power.’”

Texans often are proud of being “No. 1.” I am delighted at the prospect of Texas one day topping the list of states that are mining green-energy sources – such as wind – that will help save the planet.