Stop in for a cup of coffee
The boats I work on also service offshore windmill farms. One is an oil spill from one.
Green can be so poluting.
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Except the calculation for the windmill energy production cost is false and quoted out of context of what was originally written by the author. Steel made from iron or and coal takes 15 megawatts per ton to produce. That 260 ton windmill took 390 megawatts of energy to produce. Since it generates 2 megawatts of power it pays for itself in total cost and energy required to manufacture it in about 3 years in a good wind location.
The original statement by the author was that a windmill in a poor wind location could spin forever and never generate as much energy it took to produce.
Here is what he originally wrote...
“The concept of net energy must be applied to renewable sources of energy, such as windmills and photovoltaics. A two-megawatt windmill contains 260 tonnes of steel requiring 170 tonnes of coking coal and 300 tonnes of iron ore, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons. The question is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than it took to build it? At a good wind site, the energy payback day could be in three years or less; in a poor location, energy payback may be never. That is, a windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.”
