Moreover, if they used more energy than they produced, why on earth would we be building them? It requires one to either believe (a) the entire world except oneself is stupid and hasn’t realised this very obvious fact, or (b) it’s all a big conspiracy. If you believe the latter, this comment is probably in vain.
Also, there are places - Brazil, Chile, South Africa - where wind is not subsidised, but is still being built, and is still profitable. Obviously, energy is only a fraction of the input cost of a wind turbine, and the manufacturer or their supplies have to pay the same price for energy that they sell it for - so if the turbine produced less power than it took to make it, it would be disastrously unprofitable.
At no point did the article show that the rant was truly correct and the article was intended to provide real life numbers for these projects at each stage the Landman mentionsnin the scene from the new TV show on Paramount. There was an attempt to avoid conclusions in the analysis, other than the fact that global energy needs are growing. Energy Crisis Substack is very pro ALL energy as we believe that if any energy input was removed today, the world would be in much worse shape. However, the Landman was very correct in the fictional analysis about transmission lines and the vast amount of infrastructure needed to support wind and solar due to proximity.
The point laid out at the end of the article was that natural gas cannot be fully replaced just by installing wind and solar due to growing demand. We originally intended to highlight the gaps that could be filled by nuclear but since the Landman didn't mention it in the scene, we didn't want to get off base with the breakdown. There are a lot more projects coming online using small modular nuclear reactors to electrify fields like the scene here and those projects are way cleaner and more interesting to watch because they have a life span that can well exceed an implementation like wind seen in this episode while still delivering on petroleum products that will indeed be needed for at least another half century.
It remains true that we cannot replace many products that materials are petroleum based as well. This is a massive point laid out in the scene but would of taken the article in a different direction and was avoided in order to remain more concise. It's easy to get fixated on the negative impacts of oil and gas while trying to champion alternatives but it's important to remember that all have their pros and cons. Petroleum products have allowed for modern society to flourish and currently the benefits have well outweighed the negative impact due to the sustained needs from massive population growth of the world in the past century.
Battery backup is another issue in itself that wasn't outlined but could be discussed. Many large scale utility battery backup projects don't have a life span that makes sense based on current replace needs. Many of these implementations are still young and technologies are evolving including oil and gas production, in the U.S. especially, lowing it's carbon footprint.
The concrete piece, though not extremely impactful on the wind turbine carbon footprint, was eye opening because it shows how much energy is required for such a key piece of modern civilization. Regardless of electrification milestones the world will still be building structures that require this type of input and there won't be a massive change in its energy needs that can be replaced near term.
This was a thought experiment to allow people to work through the pros and cons with real world numbers. There are still many gaps in wind sustainability when it comes to decommissioning turbines and disposal but the bigger issue remains on how to move power from a region with wind to those without through transmission and also what it will take to remove intermittent periods of low wind.
Though Energy Crisis doesn't agree with the Landman line ‘in its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it’, we do agree with the fact that 'getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world. We don’t do it because we like it. We do it because we run out of options.'
Okay, my apologies - I thought you were endorsing the sentiment expressed. Appreciate the balanced viewpoint. Definitely agree that people don't yet grasp how important grid infrastructure is and how far behind schedule it remains. And that wind + solar alone is not the solution. And that battery storage is still pretty uneconomical.
I had not heard that Brazil, Chile, and South Africa are building wind turbines without being subsidized. Could you provide some references and more info on that?
Were they originally subsidized? Perhaps they are just finishing construction contracts that were started with subsidies? Just wondering...
"Moreover, if they used more energy than they produced, why on earth would we be building them?" I think it's because they're making profits from the subsidies.
"energy payback times between 1 and 6 years depending on materials and location." - I don't believe that statement is considering the whole picture of all the costs, and also am wondering if the "payback" is more from subsidies than sales of electricity.
Hi Al. First I'd like to volunteer an unsolicited opinion - I think you're coming at this with your mind already made up, and trying to fit the evidence to your beliefs, rather than fitting your beliefs to the evidence. But to answer your questions...
"I think it's because they're making profits from the subsidies." - I'm not asking why the private companies are doing it. I'm asking what reason governments would have to incentivise and subsidise wind power, if it literally used more energy than it generated. I'm from the UK, and we're building shit tons of wind here - if you're not aware, our country's finances aren't exactly the picture of health. Lord knows we wouldn't be burning cash like that for no reason.
"I don't believe that statement is considering the whole picture of all the costs, and also am wondering if the "payback" is more from subsidies than sales of electricity."
The payback is not a monetary payback, it's in MWh. And the studies do attempt to account for the entire "energy cost" of the turbine - that's the whole point of them. They may miss some tiny bit here and there, but nothing that's gonna turn 1-6 years into >30. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainability/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.1060130/full Here is a study looking at turbines in Brazil. It finds a payback period of less than 1 year, considering "extraction of raw material, production of parts and pieces, transportation, assembly, use, and decommissioning" - anything big missing there? They also cite a bunch of other studies across various countries, and the numbers they found. Spoiler alert, they're all pretty short - many less than a year. And before you complain that they're just biased and pushing an agenda, they do actually talk about recent turbines built on Scottish peatland and how they're not expected to pay back within the turbine's lifetime - partially because disturbing the peatland releases a bunch of gas, and partially because Scotland's grid is already very clean.
I looked into Uruguay. Since they don’t have fossil fuel resources and have to import them, they get hurt when there are price spikes. They apparently have plenty of hydropower and a high incidence of windy days. Still, their electricity is about 23 cents per KWh, which is expensive. Since hydropower is a very inexpensive source, I have to assume their high electric prices are a result of adding wind turbines, and that the prices will keep going up. So far, I haven’t been able to find anything on whether the wind turbine companies are profitable or not at the 23 cent price.
23 cents/kWh is the retail price. I'm from the UK - in September, our average retail price was 24.5 pence, or about 31 cents. So 23c is far from extortionate.
I'd be careful not to compare to the US or other south American countries, both of which have a lot of O&G and hence rather cheap energy prices.
Then again, Uruguay's wholesale price was about 14c, which is slightly higher than the UK (~9-10c).
That is likely due to their very high proportion of unsubsidised wind. But I'm not here to make the argument that wind is the cheapest energy source in the world - it was for Uruguay, but it wouldn't be in the US or Venezuela. The argument I'm making is simply that wind turbines *obviously* don't take more energy to produce than they generate, as long as they're situated somewhere with wind, and you're not disturbing a bunch of gassy peat to put them in. I hope we can agree on that at least, now?
I'd like to butt in here.. your comment we need to be careful to compare to the US... which has a lot of oil and gas..... Britain has just as abundant gas as anywhere else - the fact they don't want to use it is the issue and that is costing you the ratepayer!
I’m still less than persuaded. Are you counting the energy produced on occasions when it has to be curtailed? Because to me that wouldn’t seem worthy of being counted - in fact, it’s not just of zero value, it’s actually a negative, because times of curtailment are a downer in several ways, starting with subsidizing the wind farms for their loss (or paying them for the electricity that they can’t sell), to effectively raising the cost to consumers and taxpayers, to taking profit away from existing power plants that can provide steady electricity regardless of the weather when the price goes negative, to thereby destabilizing the entire grid system. So I have no way of knowing, at this point, if you are taking all that in consideration.
Curtailment is a rounding error for these calculations. Obviously, curtailment of wind increases as the proportion of wind in the power mix increases. The UK has a very high percentage of wind - 32% - and even here, wind is only curtailed 2-5% of the time. So the energy payback period is then 2-5% longer. So rather than 1-6 years, it's 1.02-6.3 years. Rounding error. They absolutely don't use more energy than they produce.
Of course things like grid stability matter and are a con of wind and solar power. Everyone knows that. But we can deal with it.
I'm beginning to wonder if you'll ever be persuaded, or if your mind is already set that wind power is bad. If it's the latter, let me know and I can stop trying.
Thank you for giving your answers to all my questions.
You’re right, I do have a bias against renewables and lithium batteries for backup, thinking that it would be better to put the same amount of investment into nuclear power plants, which have a small footprint and great energy density and are not affected by weather.
However, my mind is not completely made up - in fact you’ve given me a lot to think about and a lot more to investigate.
Well thought out rant.
Loved this
All due respect, the claim that wind turbines generate less power over their lifetimes than it took to make them is complete bollocks. Numerous studies have found energy payback times between 1 and 6 years depending on materials and location. Read an article from the pretty central Austin American Statesman on the subject: https://eu.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2021/10/13/wind-turbine-never-generate-much-energy-cost-build/8423146002/
Moreover, if they used more energy than they produced, why on earth would we be building them? It requires one to either believe (a) the entire world except oneself is stupid and hasn’t realised this very obvious fact, or (b) it’s all a big conspiracy. If you believe the latter, this comment is probably in vain.
Also, there are places - Brazil, Chile, South Africa - where wind is not subsidised, but is still being built, and is still profitable. Obviously, energy is only a fraction of the input cost of a wind turbine, and the manufacturer or their supplies have to pay the same price for energy that they sell it for - so if the turbine produced less power than it took to make it, it would be disastrously unprofitable.
At no point did the article show that the rant was truly correct and the article was intended to provide real life numbers for these projects at each stage the Landman mentionsnin the scene from the new TV show on Paramount. There was an attempt to avoid conclusions in the analysis, other than the fact that global energy needs are growing. Energy Crisis Substack is very pro ALL energy as we believe that if any energy input was removed today, the world would be in much worse shape. However, the Landman was very correct in the fictional analysis about transmission lines and the vast amount of infrastructure needed to support wind and solar due to proximity.
The point laid out at the end of the article was that natural gas cannot be fully replaced just by installing wind and solar due to growing demand. We originally intended to highlight the gaps that could be filled by nuclear but since the Landman didn't mention it in the scene, we didn't want to get off base with the breakdown. There are a lot more projects coming online using small modular nuclear reactors to electrify fields like the scene here and those projects are way cleaner and more interesting to watch because they have a life span that can well exceed an implementation like wind seen in this episode while still delivering on petroleum products that will indeed be needed for at least another half century.
It remains true that we cannot replace many products that materials are petroleum based as well. This is a massive point laid out in the scene but would of taken the article in a different direction and was avoided in order to remain more concise. It's easy to get fixated on the negative impacts of oil and gas while trying to champion alternatives but it's important to remember that all have their pros and cons. Petroleum products have allowed for modern society to flourish and currently the benefits have well outweighed the negative impact due to the sustained needs from massive population growth of the world in the past century.
Battery backup is another issue in itself that wasn't outlined but could be discussed. Many large scale utility battery backup projects don't have a life span that makes sense based on current replace needs. Many of these implementations are still young and technologies are evolving including oil and gas production, in the U.S. especially, lowing it's carbon footprint.
The concrete piece, though not extremely impactful on the wind turbine carbon footprint, was eye opening because it shows how much energy is required for such a key piece of modern civilization. Regardless of electrification milestones the world will still be building structures that require this type of input and there won't be a massive change in its energy needs that can be replaced near term.
This was a thought experiment to allow people to work through the pros and cons with real world numbers. There are still many gaps in wind sustainability when it comes to decommissioning turbines and disposal but the bigger issue remains on how to move power from a region with wind to those without through transmission and also what it will take to remove intermittent periods of low wind.
Though Energy Crisis doesn't agree with the Landman line ‘in its 20-year lifespan it won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it’, we do agree with the fact that 'getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world. We don’t do it because we like it. We do it because we run out of options.'
Okay, my apologies - I thought you were endorsing the sentiment expressed. Appreciate the balanced viewpoint. Definitely agree that people don't yet grasp how important grid infrastructure is and how far behind schedule it remains. And that wind + solar alone is not the solution. And that battery storage is still pretty uneconomical.
I had not heard that Brazil, Chile, and South Africa are building wind turbines without being subsidized. Could you provide some references and more info on that?
Were they originally subsidized? Perhaps they are just finishing construction contracts that were started with subsidies? Just wondering...
"Moreover, if they used more energy than they produced, why on earth would we be building them?" I think it's because they're making profits from the subsidies.
"energy payback times between 1 and 6 years depending on materials and location." - I don't believe that statement is considering the whole picture of all the costs, and also am wondering if the "payback" is more from subsidies than sales of electricity.
Hi Al. First I'd like to volunteer an unsolicited opinion - I think you're coming at this with your mind already made up, and trying to fit the evidence to your beliefs, rather than fitting your beliefs to the evidence. But to answer your questions...
I think Uruguay is probably the best example, actually. Wind is now 43% of their power mix. They had a few million dollars of public funding right at the start, 15 years ago, to get it kicked off, but that ended ages ago and billions of dollars of private investment have poured in since. https://www.wri.org/insights/how-uruguay-became-wind-power-powerhouse#:~:text=The%20developing%20nation%20went%20from,per%20capita%20of%20any%20country. They started the move towards wind not because of some global conspiracy, nor because they were super concerned about their fraction-of-a-percent of global emissions affecting the environment - they did it because it was cheap. https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/dec/27/uruguays-green-power-revolution-rapid-shift-to-wind-shows-the-world-how-its-done
"I think it's because they're making profits from the subsidies." - I'm not asking why the private companies are doing it. I'm asking what reason governments would have to incentivise and subsidise wind power, if it literally used more energy than it generated. I'm from the UK, and we're building shit tons of wind here - if you're not aware, our country's finances aren't exactly the picture of health. Lord knows we wouldn't be burning cash like that for no reason.
"I don't believe that statement is considering the whole picture of all the costs, and also am wondering if the "payback" is more from subsidies than sales of electricity."
The payback is not a monetary payback, it's in MWh. And the studies do attempt to account for the entire "energy cost" of the turbine - that's the whole point of them. They may miss some tiny bit here and there, but nothing that's gonna turn 1-6 years into >30. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/sustainability/articles/10.3389/frsus.2022.1060130/full Here is a study looking at turbines in Brazil. It finds a payback period of less than 1 year, considering "extraction of raw material, production of parts and pieces, transportation, assembly, use, and decommissioning" - anything big missing there? They also cite a bunch of other studies across various countries, and the numbers they found. Spoiler alert, they're all pretty short - many less than a year. And before you complain that they're just biased and pushing an agenda, they do actually talk about recent turbines built on Scottish peatland and how they're not expected to pay back within the turbine's lifetime - partially because disturbing the peatland releases a bunch of gas, and partially because Scotland's grid is already very clean.
Interested to hear your thoughts.
I looked into Uruguay. Since they don’t have fossil fuel resources and have to import them, they get hurt when there are price spikes. They apparently have plenty of hydropower and a high incidence of windy days. Still, their electricity is about 23 cents per KWh, which is expensive. Since hydropower is a very inexpensive source, I have to assume their high electric prices are a result of adding wind turbines, and that the prices will keep going up. So far, I haven’t been able to find anything on whether the wind turbine companies are profitable or not at the 23 cent price.
23 cents/kWh is the retail price. I'm from the UK - in September, our average retail price was 24.5 pence, or about 31 cents. So 23c is far from extortionate.
I'd be careful not to compare to the US or other south American countries, both of which have a lot of O&G and hence rather cheap energy prices.
Then again, Uruguay's wholesale price was about 14c, which is slightly higher than the UK (~9-10c).
That is likely due to their very high proportion of unsubsidised wind. But I'm not here to make the argument that wind is the cheapest energy source in the world - it was for Uruguay, but it wouldn't be in the US or Venezuela. The argument I'm making is simply that wind turbines *obviously* don't take more energy to produce than they generate, as long as they're situated somewhere with wind, and you're not disturbing a bunch of gassy peat to put them in. I hope we can agree on that at least, now?
I'd like to butt in here.. your comment we need to be careful to compare to the US... which has a lot of oil and gas..... Britain has just as abundant gas as anywhere else - the fact they don't want to use it is the issue and that is costing you the ratepayer!
I’m still less than persuaded. Are you counting the energy produced on occasions when it has to be curtailed? Because to me that wouldn’t seem worthy of being counted - in fact, it’s not just of zero value, it’s actually a negative, because times of curtailment are a downer in several ways, starting with subsidizing the wind farms for their loss (or paying them for the electricity that they can’t sell), to effectively raising the cost to consumers and taxpayers, to taking profit away from existing power plants that can provide steady electricity regardless of the weather when the price goes negative, to thereby destabilizing the entire grid system. So I have no way of knowing, at this point, if you are taking all that in consideration.
Curtailment is a rounding error for these calculations. Obviously, curtailment of wind increases as the proportion of wind in the power mix increases. The UK has a very high percentage of wind - 32% - and even here, wind is only curtailed 2-5% of the time. So the energy payback period is then 2-5% longer. So rather than 1-6 years, it's 1.02-6.3 years. Rounding error. They absolutely don't use more energy than they produce.
Of course things like grid stability matter and are a con of wind and solar power. Everyone knows that. But we can deal with it.
I'm beginning to wonder if you'll ever be persuaded, or if your mind is already set that wind power is bad. If it's the latter, let me know and I can stop trying.
Thank you for giving your answers to all my questions.
You’re right, I do have a bias against renewables and lithium batteries for backup, thinking that it would be better to put the same amount of investment into nuclear power plants, which have a small footprint and great energy density and are not affected by weather.
However, my mind is not completely made up - in fact you’ve given me a lot to think about and a lot more to investigate.