Wind energy reduces CO2 emissions

Barnard on Wind Redux post: Wind energy displaces fossil fuels MWh for MWh

Despite the reality that wind farms are one of the most environmentally benign forms of generation going and their displacement of fossil fuels, many anti-wind lobbyists and campaigners are spreading a myth that they don’t actually help with global warming.

Sadly James Lovelock, who has done so much for the environment otherwise, is among them in his most recent book and appearances.

As if this were not enough to damn wind energy, the construction of a 1 GW wind farm would use a quantity of concrete, 2 million tons, sufficient to build a town to 100,000 people living in 30,000 homes; making and using that quantity of concrete would release about 1 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air. — James Lovelock in The Revenge of Gaia

Lovelock isn’t alone. Others have chimed in as well:

Ramping the back-up gas plants up and down would mean running them very inefficiently, and give off so much CO2 that we could end up increasing our overall emissions rather than reducing them —…