It did trigger a question in my mind. How big of a "cost and carbon emissions debt" does a wind turbine build up during construction? How much CO2 and other emissions are generated before the wind turbine starts generating carbon free electricity? Not unlike EV's which also consume fossil fuels in the materials used in their construction - steel, plastics, batteries, etc. And what are the ROIC economics?

The way I look at it, the answer is in the cost. Every process and product we build or buy has an energy cost that is reflected in the price we pay. Ultimately we're always paying for energy and not much else. So when you look at a wind turbine, the financial payback reflects the clean energy payback. Keep in mind that, as we convert our energy sources to renewables, the "carbon emissions debt" that we generate will be proportionally smaller.

To give an example, when I installed solar panels at my house I figured that the payback period was 10 years (7 years after govt subsidies). So the time to pay back the carbon debt from building and installing the panels would be ten years, if all the energy to do so was generated from fossil fuels. If half of that energy was actually produced from renewables, then my carbon debt would be paid off in 5 years.

Elan