How long does it take a windmill to recover the power used in its creation?

Question

A windmill takes alot of steel to make, and is not always a very efficient energy source. I'm wondering if anyone knows about how long it would take to recuperate the energy spent in its creation, given a common model of windmill and average set of wind conditions, etc.

Answer 1

For residential systems, see the following website:

http://www.entech-engineering.com/Examples_and_Economics.htm

For large commercial wind turbine farms see:

http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/oandm.htm

Answer 2

Look at it this way - when you buy the steel, part of it's cost IS the energy it took to create it. Nobody would sell steel at a loss by not including it. Same goes for the other materials. So the cost of the materials is the upper limit to the cost of the energy used to create them, and is likely to actually be only a small fraction of that, since typically in manufacturing business', the majority of expenses are labor.

Answer 3

well that depends on one thing. do you want an engineering answer or the correct answer. the engineering answer would be i dont have a clue. the correct answer would be 1 year 4 months 6 days 2 hours and 37 minutes. but thats knowing alot of detail im not going to put in here. you can just call me and i can tell you how i arrived at that answer.