The Texas Tribune
by Jim Malewitz
For four decades, Nancy Raney’s family has raised crops — mostly alfalfa hay right now — on wide-open land near Big Spring, about 40 miles northeast of Midland. She and her husband Hugh have run the farm for 16 of those years.
But if certain troubles persist, the couple may have to stop growing hay. Theirs, however, is not story of drought, weevils or other typical West Texas scourges.
This family’s bank-breaking trouble: skyrocketing electricity costs.
Running pumps to irrigate their fields from January to November sucks up plenty of energy along with the water. But the Raneys were …