Ignorance is a solid virtue among the wind and sun cult, who apparently believe that wind turbines self-replicate without the need for any assistance from those evil fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas. Their infantile imagination is better placed in a sci-fi pic with indestructible, self-repairing droids, than in earthly reality.
An industrial wind turbine requires staggering amounts of steel, copper, aluminium and a raft of so-called ‘rare earths’ – the production of which requires staggering amounts of energy which all comes from coal, oil and gas. And not to forget the thousand tonnes or so of steel-reinforced concrete in each and every base. Ordinarily, the tremendous volumes of carbon dioxide gas generated during the production of steel and cement would have the climate cult up in arms, but not so when it comes to so-called ‘green energy’, which gets a free pass on that score.
A couple of signed-up members of the cult, John Kirk and Alistair Ballantyne recently wrote to the Press and Journal (that covers the Scottish Highlands), aiming to provide a helpful suggestion for the future use of the tonne or so of gear oil in every wind turbine (eg, the specs above are from the Vestas V112 – that has 1,170l of gear oil on board).
However, Euan Mearns provided an even more helpful suggestion: the wind cult needs to get a grip on the fact that every one of these whirling wonders represents hundreds of tonnes of minerals – all mined and processed using coal, oil and gas.
Try Using Wind to Make Turbines
Press and Journal
Euan Mearns
11 December 2023
Letter to the Editor
Sir, John Kirk (letters 5 Dec) and Alistair Ballantyne (letters 6 Dec) muse about future use of lubricating oil in wind turbines. This rather misses the elephant in the room. A 1.8megawatt onshore wind turbine weighs about 164 tons. The materials comprise concrete (foundations), steel (tower and nacelle), specialty metals (magnets), copper (generators) and composites (blades).
The raw materials need to be mined using gigantic steel diggers and dumper trucks, the mined materials need to be ground using gigantic steel grinding machines before being refined in a furnace. In the case of steel (trucks, machines and tower) the iron ore is mixed with coal in a blast furnace in order to reduce the ore to metal.
The amount of fossil fuels embedded in wind turbines is vast. In order to declare wind turbines are sustainable and green, let us see all of the aforementioned mining, fabrication and installation being done using only intermittent wind energy. It is possible to use an electric arc furnace to smelt iron ore. And I’m quite sure Elon Musk will be happy to make battery powered dumper trucks. Let us not forget that all the lithium and cobalt in the gigantic battery should also be mined using only wind energy.
Dr Euan Mearns
Aberdeen
Press and Journal
STOP THESE THINGS 
Yes, climate alarmist wooden heads still believe wind & solar power is free and zero carbon! That’s the size of it
Prof. Simon Michaux (Adelaide and Geologian Tutkimuskeskus) has calculated the amounts of materials needed to build the spectrum of “technology units” that the IEA demands we build:
1.6 times more copper than is known to exist,
13 times more nickel,
34 times more cobalt….
He enormously underestimated the amount of batteries required, so these are minimum estimates.
Described in Section 6.1 at http://vandyke.mynetgear.com/Whence-Energy.html.
This is powerful 5-minute video by Mark Mills describing the massive amount of rocks that has to be mined, transported and processed to make wind and solar facilities, with massive environmental impacts.
A very concerning article. It beggars belief that anyone can be so gullible to consider this a viable alternative to meet our nations needs. Most appear to remain willfully ignorant blinded and succumbed to the pseudo fear campaign. I had hoped we were smarter and more responsible as a nation.