Chinese-Owned Wind Farm in Devils Rivers, Texas, Threatened Power Grid & More BY BONNER COHEN, PHD, CFACT

Chinese-Owned Wind farm in Devils River, Texas, Threatens Power Grid & More by Bonner Cohen, Ph. D.

The push for renewable energy through a mix of federal, state, and local subsidies and mandates is not only putting the U.S. at risk of becoming perilously dependent on intermittent wind and solar power for its electricity. It is also providing a glide path for a hostile foreign power to mess with the nation’s power grid and damage our critical energy infrastructure.

Houston-based GH America Energy is a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese Guanghui Industry Investment Group, which, since 2015, has purchased about 140,000 acres in Val Verde County, Texas. The Xinjiang-based parent company is a massive conglomerate with extensive holdings in real estate, liquified natural gas, transportation, and chemicals. Guanghui’s billionaire founder, CEO, and Communist Party member, Sun Guangxin, wants to erect hundreds of wind turbines and perhaps several giant solar arrays on his West Texas acreage, a plan that is running into stiff resistance from residents and national security experts alike.

Located about 200 miles west of San Antonio, the Devils River area of Val Verde County would be site of Mr. Sun’s renewable energy mega-project. The sparsely populated area is home to a few Texas-size family ranches, lots of wildlife, and Laughlin Air Force Base in nearby Del Rio. French and Middle Eastern companies already operate the sprawling Rocksprings Val Verde Wind Farm, a complex covering 15,000 acres within 15 miles of the Devils River. The thought of having even more wind turbines, soaring hundreds of feet into the air, further disfiguring West Texas’s rugged but picturesque back country has long-time ranchers on edge.

“It’s a total crisis. We depend on ecotourism. The turbines will affect the deer. They will kill the birds. And we’re on the flyway for the monarch butterflies,” third-generation rancher Alice Ball Strunk, 63, told the San Antonio Express-News (August 2).

STALKING HORSE

But there is more going on here than renewable energy’s inevitable environmental degradation and noise pollution caused by giant wind turbines’ spinning rotors. Daniel N. Hoffman, a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the CIA, says Mr. Sun “is Xi Jinping’s stalking horse dispatched to exploit Texas’ dearth of regulations and bureaucracy especially related to purchasing property.”

Writing in the Washington Times (August 14), Hoffman points out that “GH America would use the cover of a windmill farm renewable energy business venture to spy on behalf of China’s ruthless dictatorship.”

Hoffman is correct in noting that Texas’ short-sighted embrace of renewable energy has been an open invitation to troublemakers. Indeed, the proximity of the Devil’s River site to Laughlin Air Force Base is, as the old Bolsheviks were wont to say, “no coincidence.” Officials at Laughlin are wary of having 700-foot Chinese-owned wind turbines sprouting up on hilltops overlooking the base, where 300 pilots are trained each year. Pointing to the threat China’s wind power venture poses to Texas’ critical infrastructure, Hoffman says the Chinese would have the capability to overload the electrical grid and cause power outages.

“The enemy is not at the gates but has gained entry inside them, albeit through a Trojan horse real estate acquisition rather than a kinetic attack,” he notes.

Texas is now saddled with a problem of its own making, and its consequences will reverberate far beyond the borders of the Lone Star State. Politicians in Austin have been promoting renewable energy for two decades. Texas is the nation’s leading producer of wind power, with some 15,000 turbines scattered among 160 wind projects, heavily concentrated in gusty West Texas. And more are on the way.

County officials in Texas lack the authority to regulate, much less block, wind projects. Val Verde County Commissioner Beau Nettleton believes the threat the Devils River project poses to Laughlin may ultimately be its undoing.

“My position, and probably the county’s, is that if it at all affects Laughlin Air Force Base and hampers their ability to perform their mission, we are going to oppose it,” he told the San Antonio Express-News (August 2).

Right now, the only thing standing in front of Mr. Sun’s wind project, which may have little to do with wind, is the U.S. Department of Defense. GH America Energy will have to reach an agreement with the military on a plan to mitigate interference with flights from the base. But even if such a plan is agreed to, the risks posed by the Devils River project go far beyond interference with flights.

IMPLICATIONS OF CHINA’S 2015 NATIONAL SECURITY LAW

China is a party state. Chinese companies, especially those with a presence in foreign countries, do not operate independently of the powers that be in Beijing. Hoffman reminds us that China’s 2015 National Intelligence Law gave the Communist Party of China sweeping powers to exploit Chinese domestic and overseas companies: “Any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the State intelligence work in accordance with the law, and keep its secrets known to the public. The State protects individuals and organizations that support, assist and cooperate with national intelligence work.”

DOD should pull the plug on the Devils River wind project now. ▫

Meat Export Challenges

by Derrell S. Peel, Oklahoma State University Extension livestock marketing specialist

The U.S. is on track for record production of beef, pork and broilers in 2020. Before COVID-19, it was recognized that meat trade would be critical for markets in 2020 and that certainly remains true at this point. After the severe disruptions in the first half of the year, expectations for meat trade have been revised and there is more uncertainty about global meat markets going forward.

Pork exports through June are up 27.4 percent year over year, led by a 335.6 percent year-over-year increase in pork exports to China. China has replaced Mexico as the top pork export destination, with Mexico down 2.8 percent for the year to date. Number three pork export market Japan is up 2.8 percent so far in 2020, following a 23.2 percent year-over-year decrease in June.

Broiler exports are up 4.2 percent yearover-year thus far in 2020, with latest data for June showing a 1.1 percent decrease from one year ago. Mexico remains the largest broiler export market with year-to-date exports up 2.0 percent following a 6.0 percent year-overyear decrease in June. China is the second largest broiler export market accounting for 7.6 percent of total broiler for the first half of 2020. The sum of broiler exports to China and Hong Kong, a better measure of total broiler demand in China, is up 173.5 percent year-over-year in the January-June period.

Year-to-date beef exports are down 7.6 percent for the January-June period, following a 33.0 percent year-over-year drop in June and a similar decrease in May. Japan remains the largest U.S. beef export market and is up 5.6 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2020. However, this follows a 20.7 percent decrease in June and a 23.6 percent year-overyear decrease in May.

Number two South Korea is down 7.4 percent year-over-year through June following double-digit monthly decreases in April, May and June.

Mexico, the number three market in recent years has seen monthly decreases averaging 66.9 percent in the second quarter, dropping Mexico to the fourth largest beef export market with a year-to-date total down 37.7 percent from one year ago. Canada, currently the third largest beef export market, is up 12.0 percent in the first half of the year.

China remains a small beef export market (1.4 percent of total exports this year) but is up 70.9 percent for the year-to-date. Hong Kong is down 8.0 percent so far this year and the combined total of China and Hong Kong is up 0.2 percent for the year-to-date.

With a weaker global economic situation, meat trade forecasts have been revised. Total pork and broiler exports are still projected higher year-over-year but beef exports are now projected to be lower year-over-year.

China will continue to be a major driver of global protein trade, especially pork. Mexico remains a major concern with dramatic economic weakness expected to continue. Four of the five largest beef exports markets dropped sharply in the second quarter; and will be watched closely for recovery in the second half of the year. China will remain a minor beef export market in 2020 but is likely to continue growing, barring major geopolitical disruptions. ▫

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