Here is a good article to read, http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/to-get-wind-power...
I wish this board was less susceptible to green-washing campaigns and look at this problem through more thorough scientific and engineering lens.
"Undoubtedly, a well-sited and well-built wind turbine would generate as much energy as it embodies in less than a year."
Sounds like good payout time - wind turbines life span is typically 10+ years.
For a long time to come—until all energies used to produce wind turbines and photovoltaic cells come from renewable energy sources—modern civilization will remain fundamentally dependent on fossil fuels.
edit: I am not against wind or solar, but they in their current form need lot more oil and that will continue for a long time, probably our life times.
edit2: The previous poster partially quoted a sentence, others would be well served if they read the full sentence.
What? llukas quoted a full sentence.
And I don't think you understand the term ‘green-washing’. It's when a company that has a bad environmental reputation does some sort of (tokenistic) project to appear ‘green’.
Fossil fuels wouldn't disappear overnight but there is less and less real dependency on them and more of a choice of using them.
There is no reason not to go wind/solar if looking just at greenhouse gases emissions.
http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13728
"As a result, we show a break-even between the cumulative disadvantages and benefits of photovoltaics, for both energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, occurs between 1997 and 2018, depending on photovoltaic performance and model uncertainties."
The major point you have not quoted it, Wind's intermittent generation relies heavily on an infrastructure that is majorly oil based. Also Wind kills lots and lots of birds.. but lets ignore that too.
Given we're starting from nearly all fossil of course fossil fuel needs to burn to do just about anything. So long as there is a sensible pay-back period, and reasonable life beyond, what's it matter? Come replacement time hopefully the steel will be smelted with entirely renewable electricity.
If we reach that point having to keep using some coal and oil for coke and other products we cannot get elsewhere is going to be environmentally trivial comparatively.
Would you prefer to stay away from renewables and stay on fossil?