Wind Turbines = Fossil Fuels!
May 22nd, 2010
An often overlooked fact is that wind energy relies almost exclusively on fossil fuels for their production, transportation, and operation. Recent government energy policy has trended towards making wind energy seem more competitive: subsidizing wind to hide its cost, while raising the price of fossil fuels. All this accomplishes is increasing the overall price of energy, which helps no one. ——————————————————————————– Fan us on Facebook: bit.ly or Follow us on Twitter: www.twitter.com Music by Kevin McCloud, www.incompetech.com Wind turbine video courtesy Josh Leo, www.archive.org
Posted in 
Tags: 
Great video. You might add that it would take 724 of these wind turbines, on 1,615 acres, to equal just 20 onshore natural gas wells on less than 8 acres. Today, at least in Ohio, the final environmental footprint of a natural gas well is about the size of the average dining room!
doesn’t it take coal, oil, and natural gas to build other kinds of power plants??
they used horses to bring the parts to the workshop to make the first generations of cars, how stupid they were.
CARS = HORSES
I know! They could have just eaten the horses and had the energy to walk!
I doubt your maintenance cost claim. The output from wind energy can be put into the existing infrastructure and be delivered wherever it’s needed (which is constantly changing) while it’s created, offsetting the existing generation. They don’t store energy now, why would it need to be stored from wind turbines? Also, what figure do you have for maintenance of the existing system? Seems to me that heat driven turbines would take more maintenance than wind driven.
@LHFX Well, in terms of dollars, wind is given 13% capacity credit at PJM. at $2MM per installed MW, that brings the development cost of reliable energy to over $15MM per MW, and at $40 per MWH wholesale, retuns only $45,500 worth of secure capacity per year per installed MW, a 300 year break even for reliable capacity on a 20 year expected life device. How’s that for “paying back?”
First of all i was talking about paying back the energy to manufacture and operate a wind farm (this video suggests that wind power relies on fossil fuels). You got it all wrong dude. It has nothing to do with them being competitive with coal and gas plants under current market conditions because at the moment they are not. In the long term though fuel prices can only go up (by their very nature) and wind power can only become cheaper from economies of scale (check Enercon E-126).
I believe that the prospects for coal, nuclear and natural gas becoming wildly expensive are only likely if the far left makes laws limiting their use. These resources are vast, and according to DOE EIA, will last civilizations for many centuries. But if you are speaking from the Chicken Little perspective, and hoping for outrageously expensive electrical power, then I see your point. Maybe someday sprawling weather power and energy storage will win in economic dispatch, God help us.
This is totally misleading and a terrible strawman argument. No one is claiming wind will be 100% of our energy source but rather a big %. We are advancing technology, we have to use the technology AVAILABLE at the time to create new and better technology. Coal steam engine railroads brought the material to build and produce the first diesel powered trains. Coal plants supplied the power to build the first nuclear power plants. Horse and buggies brought the components to build the first cars.
This is a ludicrous argument. Let’s not take into account that a turbine’s average life span is at least 25 years…. Sure the initial construction and installation requires *some* fossil fuels, but are you really trying to argue that negates 25 years of clean energy production?
Oh no! They use fossil fuels to design, produce and transport hybrid and electric vehicles. They probably should be scrapped too since there is no net savings in fossil fuel consumption.
I call shenanigans.
@indigonegative What happens when the wind doesn’t blow? Gotta crank up the motors on the turbines (oh-oh, powered by (horrors) REAL FOSSIL FUELS). Have you ever driven by these dang eyesores that go for miles and miles and miles and miles through New Mexico and Texas? Takes up so much valuable land it’s downright creepy. That constant humming is enough to even drive a lib-tard crazy! Don’t want to be a bird either—not good. Nothing wrong with stepping back in time I suppose…..hmmmm
This is ludicrous. Those are short term costs, we don’t import the same equiptment everyday. Once the turbines are here, they’re here to stay… obviously we’re not moving them back and forth. If they want to make that arguement, the rebuttal’s child’s play, “fossil fuels=fossil fuels” (same transport methods..).
The wind turbines aren’t run on fossil fuels…this clip is an insult to our intelligence. How stupid do they think we are? Wind turbines are an investment.
@spunkermunker There is no motor in those things to make them spin when the wind isn’t… that makes no sense and defeats the purpose. Each wind site has a certain wind rating and average power is estimated to determine the energy and financial benefits of putting them up in that location. There are windy seasons and low wind seasons, but the average wind and estimated benefits give each project a justification. When the wind doesn’t blow, they don’t spin. Would you rather have coal stacks?
I think this video must be satire… I mean, even a five-year-old can be taught the difference between a small expenditure for long term benefit and a constant sizable expenditure of fuels. HA! These guys are funny! And EVERYONE fell for the joke!
Turbines are made in places like China. When their production is subsidised your government is basically giving billions of taxpayer’s money to an energy company which then pays billions to a Chinese company. Then to recover costs they slap you in the face another time by increasing your energy bills. You pay two times for something that is inefficient and only serves the whims of politicians and corporations.
That’s wind power.
@aronswritingdeskyt I want to ask you two questions that I’m not sure I know and I want your opinion:
Do you have any idea how many products are imported from China?
and
Why are energy bills increased (i.e. political reasons, wars and relations with major suppliers of petroleum, or maybe natural disasters that may interrupt petroleum production and transportation)?
Also just out of curiosity, you used “your government.” Meaning your not from the US?
The worst bunch of hogwash I ever heard. Whoever is behind this video is doing lobby work for the oil industry. And only stupid people are buying it
I’m sorry but I personally on every level disagree with this video, Wind energy is in every way better than Fossil Fuels, so you can go and just plain give up, it’s something that will hopefully save our world so unless you go any brighter ideas just ***t up. This is just lame. it’s even childish, claiming it’s bad because it was built using fossil fuels, what if wind turbines powered everything, and cars ran on electricity, then what, how would they be bad then?
I do agree with the video because I feel wind is way too much hyped.
It have it’s advantages but saying it’s cheaper then coal and can replace all fossils fuels is brainwashing. It can be backed pretty easily with gas but that’s all. So far it cannot supply baseload electricity. Until then, we gotta find something else (nuclear, clean coal, gas, efficiency).
@steensn You miss the point. They have moving parts. It doesn’t matter what moves them, they need lubricant to continue moving. The oil isn’t there to make them move when the wind doesn’t blow–it’s there to counteract the effects of metal on metal friction when the wind is blowing.
@moneyfornathan Yeah, what is the point? Most use synthetic oil which uses no petroleum at all. What you don’t get is that a LITTLE oil (few barrels) for lubrication to offset HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of barrels of oil or hundreds of TONS of coal seems like a little stupid point to make doesn’t it? I know exactly how a wind turbine works, much better than you do, trust me.
We should ban subsidies to all energy sources to foster a competitive energy market. Renewables, such as wind and solar, are intermittent, expensive, inefficient energy sources. Despite thirty years of subsidies, they still make up only a fraction of our energy use.
so, what are you suggest?
but…OIL and COAL are BY FAR the most subsidized industries, not wind. Check out MAG-LEV Vertical Axis Wind Turbines. There are 500W portables that operate on a breeze.
oh jesus crist give be a break.