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Land AND resource use. Just because a single wind turbine takes up a small patch of land doesn't mean it's not extremely resource intensive. Case in point: http

• throwaway189262 5y ago
  So? How much resources does it take to mine thousands of tons of coal a day, or billions of BTU of natural gas? With solar and wind, you put it up and you're done. No more inputs. It chills in the field. With coal and gas you're feeding shit tons of material into it every day. And you always need more, for the life of the plant. It's bonkers you think the amount of steel and concrete that go into a turbine are anywhere close to comparing to the raw materials other power sources consume. Turbines require steel and concrete. So does every other building above 5 floors
• michaelbuckbee 5y ago
  I was curious about total life cycle CO2 output and found an study in Nature. It looks like: - Hydropower + Bioenergy -> 100 gCO2eq kWh−1 - Traditional fossil fuels -> 78–110 gCO2eq kWh−1 - Nuclear, Wind and Solar -> 3.5–12 gCO2eq kWh−1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-017-0032-9
  • throwaway189262 5y ago
    This is actual supporting data from a reliable source and should be up top. So it appears fossil fuels take ten times more energy to run over a lifetime. Less than I expected but still bad