What companies think climate change will have a material impact on their business?

Ninja said:

that the energy to fabricate wind farming turbine blades exceeds the energy that they harvest over a 30yr lifespan (assuming no maintenance required even).

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It depends on what side of the flat earth the wind turbine is installed in....

Funny, but not helpful...
People told me things like that when I said that H2 economy turning CO into water and electricity wasn't clean...but I work in that industry and know that it pollutes more than fossil fuels...

My question/request is serious, not a comment or disagreement. If you don't have a shortcut for my research, so be it.
I've seen (one of the ) piles of damaged turbine blades...it's a mountain, and they're huge...and they won't break down in my lifetime...let alone the energy needed to make those composites.

It is a preposterous claim. Like claiming that the energy spent to drill for, extract, pump, refine, store and distribute oil is larger than the actual energy in the final product itself. Where are you going to research to debunk such an asinine claim?

If the manufacturers of blades were to spend more energy producing them (energy that COSTS money) than to convert during it's life cycle, not mentioning the costs for material, labor, installation, not mentioning all the other costs for the generators, tower, cables etc....it would be against the laws of business 101, where one must have a ROI.

I mean no disrespect as the claim did not come from you, but it is an asinine, incredibly stupid claim that only someone that is ignorant about wind turbine technology could make.

Wind turbine blade recycling is something that is concerning to many people and a lot of research is being done on the subject:

Ørsted announces commitment to recycling wind turbine blades | Renewable Energy World
End of wind power waste? Vestas unveils blade recycling technology

Please note that I am not asking about money in vs. money out...but energy in vs. energy out. (Seems like you realize that, but it is unclear).

Do you have a source as basis for calling it asinine? If so, and I assume so, I would love to have that shortcut link before I go searching through all the fluff to find it.
Doesn't even have to be full lifetime including recycling...the claim was from fabrication of the blade through end of energy productive lifetime.
(and FWIW, ROI in the energy sector includes government subsidies...I wouldn't trust those numbers...but again, that's money, I'm checking on Energy).

Ninja said:

A curiosity that I don't have time at the moment to dig into...anyone have a shortcut?

It was posited to me today that the energy to fabricate wind farming turbine blades exceeds the energy that they harvest over a 30yr lifespan (assuming no maintenance required even).

Anyone already look into that sort of claim and have links to save me a few searches to vet or deny?

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I would not be surprised - It's possible the data for nuclear/hydro/co-gen would provide a similar conclusion. And there's got to be a metric you could factor in environmental impact outside of that - burning dinosaurs for electricity has it's own baggage.

Ninja said:

the claim was from fabrication of the blade through end of energy productive lifetime.

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Do you have the source for the claim you are trying to verify? I would like to see it.

Sidney Vianna said:

Do you have the source for the claim you are trying to verify? I would like to see it.

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Me too...and I have asked the person claiming for that too...I'd just as soon have data on both sides.

Seems a little odd, though, that a fairly extreme reaction including flat earth and 'asinine' came out, but no supporting data for said reaction from one who is asking for data from the other side... you got that data?

Pretty busy having just come back from vacation...I'll dig into it when I get the chance, but was hoping for a shortcut if someone here had already done the digging.

Thanks Johnnymo...I'll look at that too when I can.

normzone said:

I would not be surprised - It's possible the data for nuclear/hydro/co-gen would provide a similar conclusion. And there's got to be a metric you could factor in environmental impact outside of that - burning dinosaurs for electricity has it's own baggage.

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Dunno about all of that...I'm just looking at energy in vs. energy out from 'making the energy generating thing' through 'the thing don't generate energy no more' to get a bit of reality check.

Rotting dinos (assuming) likely took more energy than they give back too...but we didn't put the fab energy into it...and we don't have to make the wind blow either...I'm just looking at mankind energy in vs mankind usable energy out.
Nuclear is net energy positive, primarily since it keeps going and going and going ... never looked at hydro or cogen between the two.

Ninja said:

Seems a little odd, though, that a fairly extreme reaction including flat earth and 'asinine' came out, but no supporting data for said reaction from one who is asking for data from the other side... you got that data?

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First, the one who makes the assertion is responsible for providing the data to support it. Although "asinine" might be a bit strong, I don't think that "nonsensical" would be. Think about it for a minute and consider all of the uncountable sources of energy that might be required to manufacture anything. Do we include only the energy used in the manufacturing plant? What about the energy required for mining/producing raw materials, and the energy expended by the workers? Until the question can be asked in a structured fashion, with all of the definitions and variables accounted for, the question makes no sense.