What is the real deal with wind power?
Authorities tell us that wind turbines have a low carbon footprint per unit of power. This is questionable. But let’s follow that road and see where it leads.
How do we account for the “carbon footprint” of an ecological disaster caused by an iron ore mine? More on that below.
What is the carbon footprint of wind power?
When we talk about the carbon footprint of energy production, we measure it by grams of carbon dioxide per kilowatt hour. We want to generate as few grams of CO2 as possible for every kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity. On the low end, you have 5 to 10 grams of CO2 per kWh. On the high end, you can have over 1000 grams of CO2 per kWh.
According to Yale Climate Connections, the carbon footprint of wind power ranges from 5 to 12 grams of CO2 per kWh. Compare this with 437 to 758 grams of CO2 per kWh for natural gas and 675 to 1689 per kWh for coal.
By these estimates, the carbon footprint of wind power looks very favorable, as compared with fossil fuels.
But is that all that matters?
Here’s the catch. Wind power never stands alone. You cannot run a utility only with wind power. If the wind is not blowing, you need a backup, typically natural gas, coal, hydroelectric or nuclear power. It is misleading to talk about the carbon footprint of wind power alone, because wind power always needs a steadier, less intermittent source of energy to provide the “baseload.”
You need to combine the carbon footprint of wind power with the carbon footprint of the baseload, such as natural gas, at 437 to 758 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour.
It’s like if you buy a pair of shoes and get another pair for free as part of the deal, then the second pair is not really free. You have to allocate part of the purchase price to the “free” pair.
Looking beyond the carbon footprint …
Carbon is not all that matters. We want to look at the ecological impacts of wind energy.
For example, each new megawatt of wind power requires 120 to 180 tons of steel, according to CleanTechnica.com. And according to the Consumer Energy Alliance, “it takes somewhere in the range of 200 to 230 tons of steel to make a single wind turbine.”
Stanford professor Mark Z. Jacobson, a thought leader in the transition to renewable energy, proposes that we build 3.8 million wind turbines worldwide.
If you take 200 tons of steel per wind turbine and multiply it by 3.8 million wind turbines worldwide, then you need 760 million tons of steel. The world is a big place, but you have to do a lot of damage to a lot of places to get 760 million tons of steel. And that’s only for one generation of wind turbines, which we will replace every 20-30 years.
In Bright Green Lies, Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert, tell the story of a disaster involving a “tailings pond” at an iron ore mine in northeast Brazil.
“The world’s largest iron-ore mine is the Carajás mine, located in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. More accurately, the mine is located in what used to be the Amazon rainforest. Now, it’s located in the center of a wasteland, a clearcut, an industrial chasm. Every year, more than 2,400 square miles of forest around Carajás are cut down, mostly to make charcoal used for smelting iron ore. A 2015 collapse near Mariana, Brazil destroyed two villages, killed 19 people, polluted water supplies for 400,000, and released more than 43 million cubic meters of toxic waste into 400 miles of rivers of streams and the Atlantic Ocean. According to a United Nations report, “Entire fish populations—at least 11 tons—were killed immediately when the slurry buried them or clogged their gills.” The same report describes that “the force of the mudflow destroyed 1,469 hectares (3,630 acres) of riparian forest.””
The point is that this was a pretty big disaster. And the excuse for it is that the world needs steel. Not least of all, the world needs steel for the countless wind turbines for the transition to “renewable” energy.
For the sake of steel, we have massive deforestation, for mines, roads, tailings ponds and charcoal used for smelting. And we have an occasional catastrophic dam burst that kills people and poisons hundreds of miles of waterways. We have a mud flow that causes fish kills and further destruction of forests.
Most people who promote wind power do not associate wind power with this ecological devastation. And we should note that ocean liners, bridges and skyscrapers require steel. Therefore, you can’t just blame wind turbines.
But how clean is wind energy, when you account for the entire supply chain?
Are we really looking at the entire picture? I think not. I think we’re being sold a profitable suite of non-solutions to the climate crisis.
Notice that the most prominent “solutions” associated with climate change are solar power, wind power and electric vehicles. These are profitable corporate products. And they are heavily subsidized corporate products. We the people are expected to pay for these dubious “solutions” and be grateful for the privilege.
I think we need to move forward with our eyes wide open. And we need to ask how many ecological disasters are embedded in our bright, shiny, “renewable” future.