The total costs involved in wind energy are colossal – IOTW Report

The total costs involved in wind energy are colossal

Ice Age Now:

What about decommissioning of 20-year-old turbines and disposal? What do you do with millions of tons of rusted steel blades … melt them down? What with? … Fossil-fuel energy?

The total costs involved in wind energy are colossal

Interested reader in Australia

How science works: Someone claims to know something and everyone else’s job is to put them on the spot by interrogating every part of their claim.

I don’t have the full facts at hand to falsify Benjamin Napier’s graphic (below), but I have found information at: http://www.aweo.org/faq.html, which I think is helpful in evaluating his claims.

 

To begin with, the claim that the steel in a 2MW wind turbine masses 260 tons is supported independently. The Danish-built 1.8MW Vestas V90, for example – nacelle, blades, and tower – weighs 267 tons. (Actually, the 2MW Gamesa G87 from Spain requires 334 tons of steel!)

So, immediately, we have at least partial corroboration of Mr Napier’s graphic. Only partial, but a good start. And it implies the rest of the graphic may also be based on facts.

The foundations of these massive structures need to be considered as well. The reference site I’ve provided says: “The base of the steel tower is anchored in a platform of more than a thousand tons of concrete and steel rebar, 30 to 50 feet across and anywhere from 6 to 30 feet deep. Pylons may be driven down farther to help anchor the platform.”
The materials for this have to be mined, processed and transported to the site also. And since hydrocarbons (fossil fuels) are used in every part of that process, we have to include that cost in the overall bill for each wind turbine.

And there are other big costs which most people never stop to consider:-

19 Comments on The total costs involved in wind energy are colossal

  1. There are a lot of PPA’s and lease agreements with farmers and ranchers that didn’t address the tear down costs once the turbine reached its end of life. Tomorrow’s lumberjacks will be armed with cutting torches. TIMBER!!!

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  2. Just last week one of those blades was being transported on the interstate in the opposite direction from me. It was longer than the bed of a container sized semi by about 10 feet and needed three other vehicles to accompany it. Those things are humongous!

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  3. Here in Wisconsin those concrete foundations will remain on the site well after the turbans are removed. The contract that the utilities have with the land owners does not include removal.

    Such a deal.

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  4. Typical Leftists. Since your average Leftist from the Environmental Industry wouldn’t know Real Science if it bit them in the ass, they NEVER look ahead to factor in the consequences of their stupid, wasteful, harmful regulations.

    This is how we wound up with 10pc and 15pc Ethanol.

    Screw You, Greenpeace & Sierra Club!

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  5. The real pollutant is the batteries. How are you going to dispose of them? Then almost all “green energy” requires rare elements and the environmental and real cost of those is out the roof. The CO2 issue is a major hoax.

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  6. THEIR failed costs meaning nothing to me when you compare the fact these ‘inventions’ of ours, KILL birds, bats, etc. of all types:

    http://savetheeaglesinternational.org/new/us-windfarms-kill-10-20-times-more-than-previously-thought.html

    https://www.eagles.org/take-action/wind-turbine-fatalities/

    One more:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRSAvD8VAbI

    Can you imagine if those lady bugs met up with an active wind farm? What would the libs say then????

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  7. Ospreys use telephone poles and communications towers (triangles) before they will try to nest on a moving fucking thing that could kill them, they know better.

    I saw this while down in Fla five years ago and even now in the Northeast.

    Bought and paid for, falied btw, forced upon us under Hussein industry that NO one wants.

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  8. There’s a guy with a blog who invented the term “bird choppers” to describe wind generators. It’s quite appropriate as windmills have killed (and continue to kill) thousands of eagles, hawks and other species.

    So, we must not care about no steenking birds! Print the money and build the bird choppers. And while we’re at it, let’s build thousands of trebuchets near the border and chop us some illegals in flight.

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  9. Just talked to a young mechanical engineer
    who is working on a 17 MW 500′ tall offshore
    wind turbine.Somewhere off the New England coast.

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  10. I still think that all those wind turbines on I-90 going down the hill toward Vantage and the Columbia River in Wash. state all look like a bunch of roving giants running amuck like something you’d see in an old Ray Harryhausen stop action animated monster movie. And the ones S of Spokane on Hwy 195 by Rosalia aren’t much better although being in the middle of wheat fields is better than the ones above Vantage where nothing but sage grass grows.

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