This cosplay made my genderbend. /shwinng

Actual Texan here. Cities like Houston are trying to go 100% renewable with their energy consumption (investing in solar farms, and or purchasing only renewable energy for city buildings, parks, projects, etc.)

At the state level you’re unlikely to see a similar approach adopted because there’s entirely too much O&G money with too much influence in that arena.

But you also won’t see much interference because that would be telling Texas landowners what they can and can’t build on their massive ranches in West Texas. Out in the Permian Basin, where there’s nothing but miles and miles of miles and miles. The area is hot, dry, flat, and sees the sun more often than most other places on earth. It’s ripe for wind and solar. And as the oil out there dries up, that barren land will be used for something.

Probably solid enough for OP's needs. I wouldn't do it on a chair I planned on sitting in, but for this it should work.

Honestly I'd just cut the end of a 2x4 to get a pressure fit from the ring, but anything big enough to hit the 2.5" ID of the ring should have enough surface area that even end grain to end grain you'd still have some decent hold.

I don't really see an issue there, but I'd probably still drill and all thread those posts together so they were acting as 1 solid piece, but that certainly seems like an option.

Iron Pipe would be my choice, a cable with that much tension on it could split PVC, and possibly split the post under load, and nobody wants that.

If you're going to run the cable through the 6x6 post like that I would drill an oversized hole and line it with a bit of iron pipe and run the cable through that, just to reduce the risk of the post splitting because of the cable/tension/etc. May even consider putting in some kind of brackets to reinforce that part of the post to keep it structurally sound.

Between this guy and Mathias I just use TiteBond3 for basically everything. I like the water proof, the food safe, and the longer open time of that glue. I might buy a bottle of their dark glue for a specific project, but it’s not like I can afford walnut, I buy the expensive glue. (Joking of course, the $12 bottle lasts me like a year)

Fine sawdust works too.

Sawdust also works.