If You Want ‘Renewable Energy,’ Get Ready to Dig

WSJ ^ | 5 Aug 2019 | Mark Mills

[DUMBGRUNT]

Building one wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of plastic.

A single electric-car battery weighs about 1,000 pounds. Fabricating one requires digging up, moving and processing more than 500,000 pounds of raw materials somewhere on the planet.

Global silver and indium mining will jump 250% and 1,200% respectively over the next couple of decades to provide the materials necessary to build the number of solar panels...

World demand for rare-earth elements—which aren’t rare but are rarely mined in America—will rise 300% to 1,000% by 2050 to meet the Paris green goals. If electric vehicles replace conventional cars, demand for cobalt and lithium, will rise more than 20-fold. That doesn’t count batteries to back up wind and solar grids.

much of the mining will take place in nations with oppressive labor practices. The Democratic Republic of the Congo produces 70% of the world’s raw cobalt, and China controls 90% of cobalt refining...

Building enough wind turbines to supply half the world’s electricity would require nearly two billion tons of coal to produce the concrete and steel, along with two billion barrels of oil to make the composite blades. More than 90% of the world’s solar panels are built in Asia on coal-heavy electric grids.

Absent the realization of that impossible dream, hydrocarbons remain a far better alternative than today’s green dreams.

[Ozark Tom]

A very few grid connections, such as the major hydroelectric generating plants built not quite a hundred years ago, used large bore copper tubing to carry electricity. Almost all high voltage grid transport is done across aluminum wire bundles (ACSR) wrapped upon a core of steel wire.

[Truthoverpower]

Very good sir you have done your homework

As an engineer with 30 years in the business I’d be happy to give you free advice

[yawningotter]

Alabama summers are why wind power is impractical here. Our light and variable winds will not consistently turn the blades on hundreds of wind turbines, unless an isolated mainly afternoon and evening thunderstorm blows through, and then the wind will blow too hard.

[Tell It Right]

Thank ye much!

Is it safe to say that putting a bunch of solar now doesn't add much to the resale of the home?

If I knew today that I'd get a significant portion of my money back I'd go ahead and get solar now w/o care of if my wife and I downsize and move out in a few years. As it is I'm a bit timid in going into solar unless I know I'm going to be around long enough to get my money's worth out of it. Does that sound like a good plan?