The metric you're looking for is called Energy Return on Energy Invested, or EROEI -- how many units of energy do you need to put into all that concrete, rebar,

The metric you're looking for is called Energy Return on Energy Invested, or EROEI -- how many units of energy do you need to put into all that concrete, rebar, and transportation in order to stand up the turbine vs. how many units of energy do you get out of the turbine over its lifetime. Those who have studied it found that wind is around 4-20. Solar PV is something like 8-30. A Saudi oil well is in the 40's IIRC, and a fracking well is in the low single digits. In the US, we don't have saudi oil wells (and some would say the saudi's haven't had a proper saudi oil well since the early 2000's...), so given the options left on the table and stopping short of some materials breakthroughs that need to happen to make thorium work, wind is pretty competitive relative to what we have left here at the bottom of the metaphorical energy barrel. Now, if we're just trying to be wowed by looking at construction photos, we can also look at photos of the miles of pipework needed in the acres of an oil refinery, but that's not really going to tell us anything about the actual numbers either...