Does Wind Power Produce More Carbon Emissions than Coal?

By Michael Kanellos

EDINBURGH, U.K. — There’s a theory floating around about the the carbon emissions produced by manufacturing, erecting and monitoring wind turbines actually exceed the greenhouse gases generated by fossil fuel plants.

“That’s garbage. I know how [the doubters] get their figures and they are absolutely wrong,” said Ian Bryden, professor of renewable energy at the Institute of Energy Systems at the University of Edinburgh, in an interview. Bryden was giving us a tour of his labs. He also serves as the director of the European Marine Energy Centre. Bryden has been researching wave power for years. Some of the early experiments took place at Edinburgh.

It takes about 20 months to recover all of the carbon emissions in a wind turbine, Bryden said. Wind turbines operate for two or more decades so the emissions balance is quite positive.

Wave and tidal devices may be able to recover their carbon emissions in 18 months or so, he added. Right now, though, it’s hard to say because the industry is in its infancy.

Comments

[User 357441:]

And how long does it take to recoup the carbon emissions generated by building a coal fired plant? Or to keep it running getting employees and coal onsite?

Feb 15 01:38 PM

[yellowhoard:]

Between bovine flatulance and Al Gores hot air, I think we're all doomed to longer growing seasons.

Feb 15 04:19 PM

[SubsidyEye:]

Um, could somebody provide a link to one or the other studies? It would seem hard to believe that the carbon emissions from wind turbines would be greater than those from a coal-fired power plant. But I imagine that the accounting depends on two key parameters for the wind plant. One relates to the concrete used in the base of each wind turbine which is about 0.3 cubic metres per kW of nominal capacity. What are the assumed carbon emissions involved in making that concrete, and does the life-cycle assessment assume that at the end of a turbine's life the same base will be used for a second wind turbine?

The second crucial parameter is the capacity factor of the wind turbine. The lower the capacity factor, the greater the emissions per MWh of electricity generated. Capacity factors for wind turbines tend to be around 30% (bwea.com/ref/capacityf...). For coal-fired power plants, the capacity factor is typically on the order of 75%. Hence its emissions are divided over 2.5 times the number of kWh of a farm of wind turbines of the same nominal capacity.

Still, I'd like to see the numbers before I'm convinced that wind turbines generate more GHG emissions per kWh than coal-fired power plants.

Feb 16 09:11 AM

[Ferdinand E...:]

The good Professor Bryden is correct if he is trying to say that wind power cannot be condemned on the basis of a greenhouse gas calculation. But as for saying that it can play more than a subsidary role in the energy picture of an industrial country, that is nonsense. For instance, the energy corridor from the Mexican border to Canada that Mr Pickens would like to see is nonsense cubed.

Feb 16 10:16 AM

[baird:]

Well you know the old song- figures don't lie but liars sure do figure.

Feb 16 10:56 AM

[Paul Killinger:]

Ferdinand,

Why is that? From a layman's point of view, it appears that some forms of renewable energy are simply common sense. They may not be cost competitive with fossil fuels or nuclear power today, but their installed costs may well be less expensive than some of their traditional competitors over time. (And I say this believing that man-made global warming is largely junk science.)

Feb 16 12:45 PM

[billp37:]

We're still curious about what the HEAT RATE is for wind [and solar]generated electricity.

We continue to believe that the second law of thermodynamics has not been rescinded for solar and wind.

1Kwh = 3412.14163 BTU so we might expect perhaps more than double, considering coal and natural gas HEAT RATEs, 3412 BTUs IN are required?

We were alerted to the opinion that the second law of thermodynamics was "Not Applicable - N/A" to solar and wind electric generation in PNM foils 6 and 7.

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...

We continue to question foils 6 and 7 opinion.

We never question that there is a lot of money to be made selling alternate energy schemes to those who don't understand the laws of thermodynamics, especially liberal arts graduates.

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/whitman59/w...

Feb 16 01:26 PM

[kwstlinmo:]

I think the blades of modern wind-turbines are made with carbon fiber. Oh well, here is some fossil carbon "sequestered", it isn't burnt to CO2..

Feb 16 02:02 PM

[searcher:]

This is what gave the Sophists a bad name.

Feb 16 03:06 PM

[33Nick:]

I would be nice to see those "studies" from across the board. Since everything has its opposite, how does mining for coal and building coal plants weigh in against building wind turbines and other alternative energy devices? Are we splitting hair in four here again? We need to move on.

Feb 16 04:09 PM

[Karen Consumer:]

Exhale. Congratulations, you have just emitted carbon. How long till you will be required to buy a carbon offset credit for every ton of carbon exhaled or every decade of life is yet to be determined. It is coming, they (EPA) is working on the cattle carbon tax as we speak.

It doesn't matter what form of production is used, carbon emissions (and offsets) will be measured by what will bring in the most revenue. Unfortunately because coal is cheap and plentiful, it will be the first to fall.

Feb 16 05:58 PM

[Tim Lloyd W...:]

We've been using the figure of four months to generate CO2-free energy equivalent to the manufacturing energy CO2 of a 2.3MW turbine. But I don't have the math to hand. The number came from our city energy company's wind technician.

Feb 24 03:52 PM