I just tried to find studies on the environmental impact of wind turbine manufacturing.

[phantom power]

Not that "a half hour on Google" counts as exhaustive research, but I could not find a single report on this topic. If you search on a phrase like "wind turbines manufacturing toxic waste" you get dozens of links to articles pointing out that wind turbines do not produce toxic waste while operating. Not a single word on the byproducts of actually making them.

I find it hard to believe that I'm the first person to ever wonder about this. But I suppose it's possible nobody has ever tried to compile an answer. Has anybody else ever tried to research this question?

I did see a paragraph on the hundreds of gallons of lubricants used in turbine gear-boxes and such. Bet that's fun to change out and recycle, up there at 300 feet.

[OKIsItJustMe]

1. I found some figures about a month ago

As I recall, the impact was significantly less than that of solar panels.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. While not exactly what you're looking for...

this graph should help you.
http://www.eoearth.org/article/Energy_return_on_investment_(EROI)_for_wind_energy


(Simply assume that a higher initial investment implies higher initial impact.)

This analysis is not limited to manufacturing.

[phantom power]

10. I was more focusing on manufacturing waste than EROI...

For example, what kind of solvents are used in making carbon composite turbine blades. Or, what chemicals get used in machining gears, or making the magnets, or generator windings, or what-have-you.

Where do they go? Are they recycled? Are they quietly dumped in future super-fund sites? I'm sure it depends a lot on local regulatory environment. I bet any turbine factories in China dump that kind of crap right into the ground or the nearest river.

[skids]

3. Ya gotta use the jargon...

http://www.google.com/search?as_q=wind+turbine+life+cycle+assessment&hl=en&num=10&btnG=Google+Search&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&cr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=off

"life cycle assessment"

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Thanks!

Your Google search refound some of the data I'd found in the past. (Ah... the failures of language.)

[phantom power]

9. Thanks, good search for embodied energy.

I was originally interested in assessing manufacturing waste.

[GliderGuider]

4. I did a back-of-the-envelope CO2 analysis of wind turbine manufacturing back in December

If that would help, it's here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=125261&mesg_id=125668

It seems to me the waste products from cement and steel production would swamp most other material inputs in turbines. Perhaps there's some nasties from the blade manufacture and a bit from the electronics, but intuitively those would seem pretty small in comparison to the steel and cement.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Of course one problem is that the technology is rapidly advancing (in multiple directions)

What sized turbines are we talking about? (Economies of scale do apply.)

What materials are being used in the production of the blades today?

Which blade design is being used today by which manufacturer?

http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/blade.html

NEWS RELEASES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 7, 2007

Sandia helps develop new wind turbine blade design

Blade’s most distinctive characteristic is gently curved tip

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A new wind turbine blade design that researchers at Sandia National Laboratories developed in partnership with Knight & Carver (K&C) of San Diego promises to be more efficient than current designs. It should significantly reduce the cost-of-energy (COE) of wind turbines at low-wind-speed sites.

Named “STAR” for Sweep Twist Adaptive Rotor, the blade is the first of its kind produced at a utility-grade size. Its most distinctive characteristic is a gently curved tip, termed “sweep,” which unlike the vast majority of blades in current use, is specially designed for low-wind-speed regions like the Midwest. The sites targeted by this effort have annual average wind speeds of 5.8 meters per second, measured at 10-meter height. Such sites are abundant in the U.S. and would increase by 20-fold the available land area that can be economically developed for wind energy.

...

[GliderGuider]

7. That's interesting when talking about cost

But this thread is about the environmental impact of manufacturing (and I presume installation, too). From that POV, steel for the towers and concrete for the bases are the main players.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. There are a variety of tower styles, and construction techniques

http://www.renewable-energy-world.com/display_article/279883/121/CRTIS/none/none/Tall-%20is-beautiful:-%20Why-wind-turbine-towers-are-on-the-up/

And once again, economies of scale do matter (not just in financial terms.)

[izquierdista]

14. Concrete is negligible

The pad for even a large tower is not going to be much bigger than that for a high voltage transmission tower and I wouldn't think you would need more than 30 yards max. A single family house on a monolithic slab is going to use as much or more than that.

[GliderGuider]

16. For sufficiently large values of "negligible", perhaps...

The stresses on a wind turbine tower are much higher than those on a high voltage transmission tower due to the rotating blades and swinging nacelle.

According to http://www.wind-watch.org/faq-size.php">National Wind Watch a 1.5 MW turbine requires "more than 1000 tonnes" of concrete in its pad. From Wikipedia cement manufacture produces around 1 (range 0.7 to 1.4) tonne of CO2 for every tonne of cement, and concrete contains about 15% cement. So the concrete for the base will produce around 150 to 200 tonnes of CO2.

The manufacture of 100 tonnes of steel for a standard solid tower will produce another 200 tonnes or so of CO2.

So around 400 tonnes of CO2 will be generated in the manufacture and installation of a 1.5 MW turbine - about the same as burning 40,000 gallons of diesel fuel.

Note: The 400 tonne number is lower than the 1200 tonnes I calculated in the earlier link I gave previously. When I did that calculation I didn't account for the low proportion of cement in concrete.

[Kolesar]

11. Like boats

Carbon fiber, polyester fiber, and glass fiber.
Epoxy and polyester resin.

[izquierdista]

12. What do you want to know?

Having done some work in the business, I may be able to answer some of your questions.

Gear box lubricant is not really a consumable, as it can be recycled. It's essentially the same thing as transmission oil for heavy diesel engines, so you could consider each turbine as equivalent to a semi-truck. Compare the number of wind turbines in service versus the number of 18-wheelers on the road and you have a first order estimate of their impact.

The poster who mentioned boats is right too, blades and yachts have a lot in common. In fact, there is a shop in National City, California that does about a 50-50 business in blade fabrication and yacht hulls. Epoxy composite technology has come a long way, and the amount of material in a wind turbine is pretty small compared to some other uses of epoxy composites.

If there is anything more specific you need, I'll see if I can find an answer.

[phantom power]

13. I guess what I'm trying to figure out is...

what is the sum total of toxins that result from manufacturing a wind turbine (and the tower it is mounted on). And, as you mentioned, what happens to them. Recycled, secretly dumped, etc.

The end-goal would be to take this sum total and divide it by the amount of energy produced by a wind turbine over its lifetime. As one component of externalized-cost/unit-energy.

[izquierdista]

15. Search for data on alternators

If you think of the wind turbine as a big alternator on a post, you might make some progress. There probably is data on toxins generated for manufacture of car and truck alternators, so take that and scale it. I would estimate that manufacturing 1 million car and truck alternators is probably equal to manufacturing 100,000 wind turbines (turbines are more than 10 times bigger, yes, but larger means more efficient manufacturing operations).

For the installation and maintenance of the tower, compare the tower to a highway bridge. Both are steel structures painted regularly to prevent corrosion. If you know the weight of a bridge and the weight of the tower, you can make a comparison. A tower for a small turbine (under 100KW) runs from 5 to 10 tons.