How much energy is used to design and manufacture a wind turbine?

Question

What would be the energy consumption to produce one wind turbine, taking into account absolutely everything, from the design engineer's power consumption on his pc to the manufacture of metal or plastic parts to the to the energy consumption of the cement manufacture for the concrete base?
How long would it take for this turbine to produce a energy "payback" ?

Answer 1

yeah the amount of carbon dioxide sent into the atmosphere making one of these things is going to be a lot , they never mention that and i dont think this is about cash.
it isn't going to pay back for 10 years in terms of the amount of carbon emissions it saves from coal protestations

i was told this by a university lecturer , i dint know how he knows this but he also mentioned that there are tidal power stations that are much greener but with currant technology they dont produce enough power

if we dont reduce carbon emissions by 100% in 20 years the climate will change forever destroying the rainforest's polar ice caps and coral reefs

so those wind turbines could be a source of power even when there is a very small population left
they could help us repopulate in a mad max scenario.

Answer 2

Nothing to do with energy, farmers get £40,000 a year for a wind turbine on there land. It costs I million to build one that's no taking into consideration maintenance. and no too sure bout this but that would prob power a house no longer than a year. And you can't store power so why are all wind turbines in far away places? Another way to put money in peoples pockets

Answer 3

domestic turbines in GB. is a total waste of money the one being promoted at the time is beautifully constructed, but would do no more good than a status symbol, since it produces I KVA in a25MPH wind check how often you get the wind speed of this magnitude and the period of time it will last. the norm would be nearer 30 WATT's! not the answer to your question but relevant to the input energy requiered to manufacture it

Answer 4

Your question is a great one. It would be very hard to answer accurately. I have often thought of the same thing as I have used photo voltaic for my electric for many years on my island. It took a lot of energy to manufacture these panels and batteries. Think of all the pollution. Think of all the commuting of the workers involved in the manufacturing of the glass, aluminum, lead etc. I saw a bumper sticker once that said------Help decrease pollution-Commit suicide! Now that's a deep thought!

Answer 5

What's done is done. Once it's built, only maintenance energy. . This doesn't affect the procurement process so much as the result of course.

Answer 6

You must add in the energy cost of on-going Maintenance (during its projected life-time) and (of-course) the energy cost of decommissioning and recycling at end of life.

My guess (with todays technology) is 'never' ...