One 2019 study from engineers at the University of Texas at Arlington factored in the wind speeds from a working wind farm in Texas with 200 turbines. Turbines may have a predicted output, but the wind determines what really happens. There are a few key variables, including how long the wind turbine lasts - manufacturing costs are baked in, and the longer a turbine lasts, the more years those costs get spread over. Research finds that as much as 86% of the total energy comes in the manufacturing step, although some studies found lower percentages. And at the very end - after 20 to 30 years - it has to be dismantled and recycled.įact-check: Are Democrats responsible for the growth of the national debt? It takes energy to install a turbine, and a small bit of energy to operate it. The raw materials need to be mined, those materials need to be turned into rotors and towers and those parts need to be shipped. There are many steps in the making of a wind turbine. ![]() A windmill’s lifecycle energy storyįor decades, researchers have been assessing all the steps that go into turning wind into electricity. Study after study has found that when all is said and done, a properly placed turbine nets out positive.Ī 2016 study from Danish engineers looked at onshore and offshore turbines and wrote, "The energy payback time was found to be less than 1 year for all technologies."Ī group of engineers in Texas did similar work and reported that "the payback times for CO2 and energy consumption range from 6 to 14 and 6 to 17 months," with on-shore facilities having a shorter payback. The Facebook post skipped over that sentence, and jumped to Hughes’ warning, that in the wrong spot, a windmill "could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it." (There’s a logical breakdown here: If a turbine is spinning, then the wind must be blowing, and the turbine is producing power.)Īlso, wind turbine technology has changed greatly over the past 10 years, as engineers have developed more efficient models and gained experience in siting windmills. "In a poor location, energy payback may be never."įact-check: Does Biden's infrastructure plan contain a 3% property tax? "At a good wind site, the energy payback day could be in three years or less," Hughes wrote. Hughes’s focus was on the need to put turbines in places where the wind blows. "The question is: how long must a windmill generate energy before it creates more energy than it took to build it?" Hughes wrote. David Hughes, a geoscientist with the Geological Survey of Canada, wrote about the total energy package for wind turbines, a perspective that included how much energy it took to make the turbine, not just the energy it produced when it was operational. The numbers in the post come from a 2009 collection of essays on climate change and Canada. The highest estimate we found was a bit under six years. From construction to demolition, the energy payback on a windmill can be less than a year. (We corrected several typos in the text.) "A two-megawatt windmill is made up of 260 tonnes of steel that required 300 tonnes of iron ore and 170 tonnes of coking coal, all mined, transported and produced by hydrocarbons," the post says. The image is topped with a striking photo of a wind turbine on fire (it comes from a March 2020 fire in Texas) and gives some details. In 2019, we found an earlier version False, but it walks again.įact-check: Biden said that raising the debt limit is usually bipartisan. ![]() ![]() "A windmill could spin until it falls apart and never generate as much energy as was invested in building it," a Sept. They now produce over 8% of the nation’s electricity, and their output is expected to nearly double over the next decade.Ī Facebook post casts wind as a losing proposition. Here's why: Wind farms are a pillar of America’s climate change strategy. Viral image: Says a wind turbine “could never generate as much energy as was invested in building it.” Watch Video: Texas wind energy beats out the nation and parts of the world
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