Wednesday 29 October 2014

How much steel and concrete for the fabrication of windmills and nuclear reactors?

EPR nuclear reactorTypical modern windmill
Power1,600 MW2 MW
Coeff production (h/an)7000 h (80% of 8760 h)1750 h (20% of 8760 h)
Life time60 years15 years
Total production in TWh (over entire lifetime)670 TWh0.053 TWh
Tons of steel40,000150
Tons of concrete200,0001000
Tons of steel per TWh602830
Tons of concrete per TWh30018900

For the same amount of electricity produced, windmills require 50 times more steel and 60 times more concrete than nuclear reactors.

This is with the EPR reactor which is a rather "heavy" reactor (more steel and concrete than its’ competitors, such as the AP-1000).

EFN / Bruno Comby / 7 02 2007

Per Peterson provides a different comparison kinder to wind but using old wind technology. He compares energy cost of building plants: Nuclear, Wind, Coal, Natural Gas.

1 comment:

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