Be aware that the 'pollution created during manufacture' figures that get bandied about both for wind turbines and electric cars tend to assume 500g/kWhr for the CO2 equivalent of embedded energy used during manufacture - this is correct, only if the steel comes from a coal fired furnace and the power for the milling, welding machines and so on from a coal fired power station.
This is a perfectly reasonable assumption when the renewable technology does not exist at all, and the product is being developed for the first time. Less so now. It suits certain vested interests to recycle the old figures,and not mention this bootstrapping process where the energy to make the 2nd wave of machines comes in part from the work of the first.
Electric steel mills and any other kind of metal smelting can just as easily be run off a wind farm, or tidal or solar power, so long as the electrons go back and forth at the right frequency and right voltage.
Be aware that the 'pollution created during manufacture' figures that get bandied about both for wind turbines and electric cars tend to assume 500g/kWhr for the CO2 equivalent of embedded energy used during manufacture - this is correct, only if the steel comes from a coal fired furnace and the power for the milling, welding machines and so on from a coal fired power station.
This is a perfectly reasonable assumption when the renewable technology does not exist at all, and the product is being developed for the first time. Less so now. It suits certain vested interests to recycle the old figures,and not mention this bootstrapping process where the energy to make the 2nd wave of machines comes in part from the work of the first.
Electric steel mills and any other kind of metal smelting can just as easily be run off a wind farm, or tidal or solar power, so long as the electrons go back and forth at the right frequency and right voltage.
