My muscles shake as I climb up the inside of a seemingly endless vertical tunnel, stopping at platforms along the way to catch my breath. Alongside a handful of companions from Invenergy and a photographer, I make my way up a 300-foot wind turbine near the West Texas town of Stanton. On this 2019 trip, we’re led by Jake Thompson, manager of the clean energy company’s wind farm.
At the top, I climb out, tether myself to rails on the surface, and gaze at the magnificent, spare landscape of the Permian Basin. Lines of lazily spinning wind turbines stretch out toward the horizon, but I see familiar pumpjacks, too, and in the distance, flaring natural gas at the top of pipes dancing brightly. And while I can’t
