There’s a big brackish water desalination plant in el paso. the largest such plant in the USA.
Its a shame they’re not a part of the texas grid. they could get electricity at prices that would chop their desalination costs by a third and make fresh water cheap enough for high end agriculture.
There’s an ocean of brackish water under the west texas scrub. Brackish means the water is slightly salty. Its much cheaper to desalinate than sea water because the salt content of sea water is 4-8 times saltier.
Traditionally windmills were used to pump up water from wells—except where the water is brackish.
All they need to do is harness the night time production of windmills— when electricity prices are dirt cheap— to pump up and desalinate water out in west texas—and suddenly they have fresh water that’s cheap enough to water high end crops growing on land that’s dirt cheap.,..,
There is one large brackish water desalination plant in El Paso but its not currently on the Texas Grid.