Of course! Including the bit where Morpheus says ācombined with a form of fusion the machines found all the power theyād ever needā¦ā Iāve never thought about it until now but as someone who builds robots for fusion reactors, 1. That makes no sense, fusion would provide plenty, no need for humans. 2. I am actively working towards my speciesā annihilation.
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Got to thank the Swedish Doom Goblin and all the entourage for some of this. Britain had cheap coal fired power stations running on UK coal. Now Drax, which used to be the biggest power station in Europe is running on Woodchip from Canada and calling itself environmentally friendly. (How far does a freighter go on a gallon of fuel across the North Atlantic?) Eggborough its neighbour is closedā¦ Environmentally friendly energy isnāt cheap, or if you look closely, environmentally friendlyā¦
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What absolute rot. Coal is a stupid option. Thatās why itās been shut down. Wind, solar and hydro are some of the cheapest solutions, and itās rather difficult for despots to hijack the sun. Donāt blame the messenger if you donāt understand the message.
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Mr Burns would disagree with you
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How much carbon is used to manufacture, transport, construct and commission a turbine? How much good farming land is being taken from food production for Solar?? The concrete to be used for a wind turbine footing would be horrific!
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You ask some great questions which deserve thought.
I am assuming that you are asking this question because you are comparing against power plants that burn natural gas? The really really good thing is there are many many papers which give you these numbers. So for example Comprehensive life cycle assessment of large wind turbines in the US | SpringerLink tells you that for the studied 2 MW power turbine: 4.9 CO2 eq per kWh (cradle to grave). And you are right almost all of C02 foot print is during pre commissioning of the turbine.
Ok, and now let us compare?
Natural gas power plant: 437-758 CO2eq per kWh
Coal: 675 -1689. CO2eq per kWh
So the numbers tells us that wind turbines are a pretty good deal in terms of C02eq per kWh cradle to grave.
So yes fantastic question. BTW, if you want more information related to other electricity generation technologies then you should find Life Cycle Assessment Harmonization | Energy Analysis | NREL a good starting point.
And remember when you are reading about this sort of stuff people with an agenda often want to talk about only one aspect of the carbon footprint not the entire lifecycle.
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What I was getting at was, how much energy is used to actually build wind turbine towers.
Then how much fuel to transport them from factory across seas to actual site, how much diesel is used by the cranes, dozers and concrete mixers to prepare the site and build the towers, also the carbon footpring putting in all the service roads and cable installation to disperse the power generated.
After their shelf life how much to decomission, demolish and dispose of them? The disposalis most important as the wings cant be recycledā¦
Iāve been in the construction industry for 25 years, mainly oil and gas pipelines, but also cable laying. The amount of fuel used to lay a mile of gas line is mind blowing so the wind turbines will be similar. The trucks that haul the wings only do about 8mpg.
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If you click on the link provided by @bitflip youād have seen this in the first paragraph.
The goal of this study was to conduct a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) for large onshore wind turbines in the US, including all phases of the turbineās life cycle separately (materials acquisition, manufacturing, transportation, installation, operation and maintenance, and end of life)
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I took the time to read your comment and think about what you said before I replied. Please read my reply and think what I mean by ācradle to graveā or alternatively what ālife cycleā means. It covers everything you say and more.
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True, but it didnāt end all that well for Mr. Burns did it!
No idea.
That was a cartoon from 20 odd years ago
Slightly off topic but related is what hasnāt been discussed is the obvious nature of the turbines requiring it to be windy for efficiency. Iām not a 100% but today only around 3% of the UK energy needs has come from wind power due to low winds and other days itās been considerably higher. Gas still has a big role to play in energy production over the short and medium term. The obvious solution over the long term is renewables backed up by nuclear, but nuclear has a reputation to be just as bad. Hopefully in the long term fusion technology can replace nuclear. Thereās now no doubt that the not in my backyard mentality and ESG group think ideas is going to bite anyone in Europe in the ass. While ESG is morally right this is when ideology meets practically. Unfortunately Europe doesnāt have the technology or the infrastructure to meet a net 0 target anytime soon.
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Yes, you are right the present problems are down to high gas prices. If you want to discuss ESG please use ESG investing.
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The only solution to any of this is to frack .
we need our own gas, gas we can sell to ourself and not at world market prices
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Trying reading some of the sources @bitflip posted. Itās more than a little strange people being interested in a full life cycle analysis of anything potentially green, but never applying the same thing to anything else.
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Some have also suggested that UK shale gas production would reduce the cost of energy for UK consumers. However, this is based on the false assumption that UK shale gas would be sold significantly below the international market price for natural gas. A study published in March 2020 by Warwick Business School pointed out: āIt is widely recognised that the open and liberal nature of the UKās gas market means that the market price ā the National Balancing Point (NBP) ā is unlikely to be influenced by shale gas development.ā
Not these pesky experts again ?
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Experts 
the same ones that when I was at school said we had 10 years or north sea gas left ā¦ its all doom n gloom
35 years later
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We are in a different world to 2020 so Iām not sure the assumptions made there would necessarily apply especially if a future U.K. government took a U.K. 1st view on shale gas view.
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I love this (surprisingly common) pattern of online discourse:
but did [subject matter experts] who wrote this paper consider [first order concern] that I, someone unfamiliar with the subject, immediately considered?
And by āloveā I mean āutterly despiseā.
Given the timeframes involved itās very unlikely these are the same people.
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