A woman in our office expressed her horror, when I threw away a plastic bottle one day.
I told her it takes more energy to recycle a plastic bottle, than it does to make a new one.
How do I know that, she asked?
Nobody pays me for plastic, like they do with aluminum. Sooo...since the cost of a mass produced item, made out of a commodity like plastic, is essentially the cost of energy to produce and ship...it is an easy conclusion to make.
I have similar suspicions that windmills take more energy to produce, than what they will ever generate.
BTW, she gave me the ‘you just shanked a baby panda’ look, and walked off.
The state of California charges me 5 cents to drink out of a soda can.
I want (and get) that money back.
Fortunately for me, there’s a can/bottle redemption kiosk not far from where I live.
Cost more. For every kilowatt of power from wind energy you need backup sources of production when the wind ceases. You cannot reduce the capacity of normal power plants.
A great friend of mine is a retired heavyweight from the environmental department of a major utility. He told me from day one of the recycling craze: “When they start paying you for your trash, then you will know that recycling is a worthwhile enterprise; otherwise, it is nothing but a feel good endeavour designed to appease the greenies.”
I doubt it. At least we know that the old-fashioned windmills were worth producing, or it wouldn’t have been done. There wasn’t a surplus of energy to waste . . .IMHO windmills might cost more money per installed kw than fossil fuel-ed or nuclear power plants. But I don’t know that the energy budget for a windmill would be negative. Unless you don’t have a good use for the power when and as it becomes available - as would be the case if you tried to use it for air conditioning, for example.