How Fossil Fuels Help Make Wind, Solar, Hydro & Nuclear Energy Possible

Wind Turbines & Fossil Fuels

Wind turbine production requires a vast amount of mined materials. While wind energy is a renewable resource, the minerals and metals needed to manufacture a wind turbine are not.

For example, building a single wind turbine requires 900 tons of steel, 2,500 tons of concrete and 45 tons of nonrecyclable plastic ^[5]. For those who don’t already know, steel is an alloy of iron and carbon, melted together with metallurgical coal. At the same time, concrete relies heavily on fossil fuels to heat rocks such as limestone and clay to make cement. And, of course, plastic is a refined energy product derived from oil and natural gas.

Wind turbines require at least four rare earth minerals - neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium ^[6]. They also need a ton of copper. A 3-megawatt (MW) turbine, for example, requires 9 tons of copper, equivalent to the weight of a fully loaded school bus ^[13]. The towers and blades can be produced from carbon fibre, aluminum, and/or steel ^[7], while carbon fibre is made possible by polyacrylonitrile ^[8] – a product derived from fossil fuels.

The movement, installation and maintenance of wind turbines also require traditional, non-renewable energy sources and petroleum products, such as semi-trucks and other heavy-duty specialized equipment that run on diesel fuel.

Wind energy infrastructure demonstrates the vital relationship between renewables and non-renewables, how one needs the other, and so forth!

Solar Panels & Fossil Fuels

Solar power farms are sometimes so huge that they require even more cement, steel, and glass than wind farms do – not to mention other critical minerals such as silver and indium ^[9].

To make a single solar panel, several tons of coal must be burned in a furnace at very high temperature and pressure ^[10], a process made possible only by the high energy density inherent to burning fossil fuels. The process of purifying silicon from sand, for example, requires extremely high temperatures often exceeding 2,000°C ^[11].

The frame that holds solar panels in place is also typically made of anodized or powder-coated aluminum ^[12]. Meanwhile, the platforms these installations sit on are often concrete, also made possible by non-renewable materials and inputs.

Hydroelectricity & Fossil Fuels

Massive amounts of cement are required to build hydro plants, including the dam, reservoir and electricity-producing infrastructure.

Hoover Dam in the U.S. State of Nevada is an excellent example of the sheer volume of cement required to build a hydro dam. According to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, 3.25 million cubic yards were needed to construct the dam ^[14]. In total, 4.36 million cubic yards of concrete were used in the dam, power plant, and appurtenant works ^[14].

To put these numbers into perspective, such a vast amount of concrete would build a monument 100 feet long and wide and more than 2.5 miles (over 4 kilometres) high ^[14]. If placed on an ordinary city block, this structure would rise higher than the 1,250-foot-tall Empire State Building OR pave a standard 16-foot-wide highway from San Francisco to New York City ^[14].

Cement is derived from mined materials such as limestone, sand, and clay, which are heated to high temperatures using fossil fuels, further underscoring the need for non-renewable resources to build renewable energy.

Nuclear Plants & Fossil Fuels

Nuclear power plants require massive amounts of cement, steel and mined materials to build.

For example, a facility with 1,000 kilowatts of power generation (1,000 kilowatts = 1 megawatt – or MW) requires 40 tons of steel and 190 cubic metres of concrete ^[15]. Therefore, a nuclear power plant with one gigawatt (GW) capacity (1,000 MW) would require 40,000 tons of steel and 190,000 cubic metres of concrete ^[15].

To put things into perspective, the U.S. was home to 93 operating nuclear reactors by the end of 2021, with a combined generation capacity of about 95,500 MW – or roughly 1 GW each ^[16].

Therefore, to build all 93 U.S. nuclear power plants with 1 GW of capacity again would require 3.72 million metric tons of steel and 17.7 million cubic metres of concrete.

Now that's a lot of cement and steel, made possible by non-renewable energy and materials!

Canada Needs All Forms of Energy

Canadians don't have to choose between supporting renewables or non-renewables – we can do both!

Canada is already a global leader in renewable and nuclear energy production, with approximately 71 per cent of its domestic supply generated by renewables and another 14 per cent by nuclear ^[17]. Additionally, six Canadian provinces and territories already get more than 90 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources (primarily hydro) ^[17].

We are also the world's fourth-largest producer of crude oil and fifth-largest producer of natural gas, and one of the world’s top ten renewable energy producers.

As shown above, fossil fuels and wind, solar, hydro and nuclear must work in unison – renewables cannot exist without non-renewables. With global energy demand continuing to grow for decades yet, discussions about our energy future should take an all-inclusive approach, one in which we don't have to choose between renewables and non-renewables, but can say "yes" to both.

Join Us Today!

Supporting all forms of energy in Canada means supporting a stronger, more prosperous future for all Canadians.

Join us today to learn more about Canada's natural resource sectors and how they form the foundation of our national economic prosperity today!

SOURCES:

_{1 - https://www.volts.wtf/p/why-electrifying-industrial-heat}

_{2 - https://www.brookings.edu/articles/why-are-fossil-fuels-so-hard-to-quit/}

_{3 - https://www.corning.com/worldwide/en/innovation/materials-science/glass/how-glass-made.html}

_{4 - https://www.cbc.ca/news/climate/iea-energy-outlook-2025-9.6976107}

_{5 - https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-want-renewable-energy-get-ready-to-dig-11565045328}

_{6 - https://www.windsystemsmag.com/24015-2/}

_{7 - https://www.madehow.com/Volume-1/Wind-Turbine.html}

_{8 - https://www.alfa-chemistry.com/resources/preparation-and-properties-of-polyacrylonitrile.html}

_{9 - https://natural-resources.canada.ca/minerals-mining/mining-data-statistics-analysis/minerals-mining-publications/enabling-clean-energy-applications}

_{10 - https://solvoltaics.com/much-coal-make-solar-panel/}

_{11 - https://www.solarnplus.com/how-crystalline-silicon-becomes-a-pv-cell/}

_{12 - https://aluminumsolarframe.com/what-material-is-used-in-frame-of-solar-panel/}

_{13 - https://www.americanexperiment.org/wind-turbines-require-nine-tons-of-copper-which-is-the-weight-of-an-average-school-bus/}

_{14 - https://www.usbr.gov/lc/hooverdam/faqs/damfaqs.html}

_{15 - https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2007/07/constructing-lot-of-nuclear-power.html}

_{16 - https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/nuclear/us-nuclear-industry.php}

_{17 - https://energy-information.canada.ca/sites/default/files/2025-11/energy-fact-book-2025-2026.pdf}

_{18 - https://natural-resources.canada.ca/energy-sources/powering-canada-s-future-clean-electricity-strategy}