🌅 Today’s stat: 5.3 months

SOURCE

Dammeier et al. (2019)

WHAT TO KNOW

• While results can vary by country, turbine size, and whether the turbine is located on land or offshore, the average greenhouse gas payback time of a wind turbine is less than half a year, leaving around 19.5 years of carbon profit (based on a wind turbine’s standard 20-year lifecycle). Other research shows a wind farm with dozens of turbines can offset the carbon emissions generated across its entire 30-year lifespan after just two years of operation.

WHY IT MATTERS

• Several studies show wind turbines are a low-carbon source of energy from cradle to grave, producing anywhere from 5 to 26 grams of carbon dioxide (and equivalent gases) per kilowatt-hour of electricity generated, around 1% of the 437 to 758 grams associated with natural gas and the 675 to 1,689 grams associated with coal. Research also shows the monetary value of the benefits of land-based wind energy is three times greater than the value of the associated costs.

CONNECT THE DOTS

• Wind turbines and their carbon footprint recently became a topic of discussion after an episode of Taylor Sheridan’s new show Landman, in which Billy Bob Thorton’s character Tommy Norris, a crisis manager in the oil industry, insultingly teaches a climate-conscious lawyer about all of the ways fossil fuels are used to produce and install wind turbines, claiming the process is so reliant on oil that a turbine can’t offset its carbon footprint over an entire 20-year lifespan. The real-life science described above shows that’s clearly wrong; turbines require less time to pay back their greenhouse gas emissions than viewers had to wait for the ending of the final season of Sheridan’s hit show, Yellowstone (and, to borrow the language of Mr. Norris himself, don’t even get me started on solar panels).