Click image to link to the magazine. See page 45
For the NAPE Magazine Winter 2026 edition, I discuss an ambitious transmission plan known as the “Permian Basin Reliability Plan” being staged in Texas. However, the first twenty-first-century tracks were laid with Texas CREZ lines a decade earlier. That plan connected wind-swept regions to demand centers. Trouble was, it did not go far enough to meet Texas’ growth—in population, industrial development, oil and gas resources, more solar and wind resources, and now data centers.
The feature precedes the Summit of the NAPE Expo 2026, Feb 18-20. Looking forward to it!
A woman’s saddle from a famous maker Austin Slim Greene from the 1930s. I found it in a Santa Fe shop on the 2022 road trip.
Some background
As a sixth generation Texan, with ancestors here before Texas was Texas, I can emphatically say I’ve been part of the development story of Texas.
Fast forwarding: In 2022, I learned more deeply about some of the most statuesque ranches in Texas, including the Waggoner Ranch, 6666s, Turkey Track and so forth. Ranches and farmlands are in my family background too. On a road trip that year, trekking from Dallas to New Mexico frequently, I looked harder at the transmission lines and wind and solar development up in the Panhandle and along the way on Interstate 40 and connected highways. It informed the story called "Texas Million Dollar Miles" about connecting the renewables scattered around Texas, predominantly in West Texas and the Panhandle. But there was more to that story…
The CREZ line project that Texas initiated was a Herculean effort to connect renewables across the vast expanses of Texas lands. It was even hailed as a model at Davos a year or two back. The article was cited in an academic journal too (noted on my featured work page).
As more happens on the land involving oil and gas, renewables, and the prospects of more nuclear capacity in the future, does this potentially change the complexion of what makes Texas Texas? I think there's too much natural capital and culture to be maintained.
Given the propensity and incentive to build transmission, it must be built in the right places that light the path of sustainable growth. Real demand’s true north matters more than ever.
Backgrounder Interview with Landman Jonathan Grammer
More Background on chronicling the Permian Basin (initially the raison D’etre of the wire up)
On the rise of the Permian Basin: How WTI, the U.S. crude benchmark price, became a global benchmark.
Believe it or not, my first brush with the Permian began with a road trip in August 2013. It was there that I saw the U.S. crude oil breakout in the making.
Panhandle Road Trip, Fall 2022
