STORY / PUBLIC SOURCE RECORD
Carbon footprint of a wind turbine: a life cycle assessment
- Published 10 October 2025; updated 30 September 2026; estimated reading time 3 minutes. The article compares lifecycle greenhouse-gas emissions for wind generation with fossil-fuel power and gives cited ranges of 7–11 g CO₂e/kWh for onshore wind and 8–14 g CO₂e/kWh for offshore wind. It says manufacturing/construction emissions can be offset within about two years and cites a claim that wind has roughly 98% fewer lifecycle emissions than fossil fuels.
- A 2024 lifecycle assessment cited by the article attributes 91.7% of wind-turbine lifecycle CO₂ to manufacturing, especially steel, concrete, composites and rare-earth materials. Transport is estimated at 0.5–3 g CO₂e/kWh depending on mode/distance; installation (foundations, assembly and grid connection) at 1–4 g CO₂e/kWh, with project/site differences.
- The article says lifecycle effects vary with materials, transport distance, foundation choices, turbine size/rated power, wind consistency/capacity factor and end-of-life treatment. Recycled steel, wooden towers, lighter composites, larger turbines that yield more energy per embodied carbon, and higher capacity factors are presented as ways to lower emissions per unit of electricity. It says blade recycling remains limited but is improving.
- Potential reductions discussed include concrete or wooden tower designs to reduce steel impacts; magnet-free generators to reduce reliance on rare-earth elements; local fabrication; reuse of foundations and repowering; recyclable thermoplastic/resin composites; and digital operations/predictive maintenance to raise capacity factors and extend life.
- Norwegian examples include Gjenkraft’s collaboration with Vattenfall and EVI to recover glass and carbon fibres from retired blades and reuse them in skis. The DecomBlades consortium aims to create viable blade-recycling value chains and conducted a commercial-scale experiment with fibreglass producer 3B at its Birkeland plant in Norway.
- Related links: Energy and Offshore wind industries; articles on blade recycling and predictive turbine maintenance. The article has no named contact block.