Land AND resource use. Just because a single wind turbine takes up a small patch of land doesn't mean it's not extremely resource intensive. Case in point: https://twitter.com/extrachelle/status/986599367049179136?s=...
With solar and wind, you put it up and you're done. No more inputs. It chills in the field.
With coal and gas you're feeding shit tons of material into it every day. And you always need more, for the life of the plant.
It's bonkers you think the amount of steel and concrete that go into a turbine are anywhere close to comparing to the raw materials other power sources consume.
Turbines require steel and concrete. So does every other building above 5 floors
It looks like:
- Hydropower + Bioenergy -> 100 gCO2eq kWh−1
- Traditional fossil fuels -> 78–110 gCO2eq kWh−1
- Nuclear, Wind and Solar -> 3.5–12 gCO2eq kWh−1
So it appears fossil fuels take ten times more energy to run over a lifetime. Less than I expected but still bad