Rough calculation A 3MW wind turbine uses about 5 tonnes of copper. Copper ore rock is about 1% in concentration. So for 1 wind turbine, we need to dig 5 tonnes ÷ 1% of copper ore rock = 500 tonnes of copper ore for each 3MW wind turbine. We in UK have 11,000 wind turbines. The Ministers of Energy want to triple wind energy capacity so we need 33000 new wind turbines. 33,000 x 500 tonnes = 16,500,000 tonnes of copper ore rocks we need to dig up from somewhere and move it to the smelter somewhere to melt it down. Not sure if the Green elite anti fracking activists have considered the environmental impacts of such scale of mining for copper. And we still haven't considered copper for EV which use 80kg of copper and 300-400kg of lithium, cobalt and rare earth. All form of energy have impact on the environment.
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