The most steel-intensive power source – by far – is the modern wind turbine. The steel intensity of a wind turbine depends on its size. A single, large wind turbine requires significantly more steel per megawatt of installed power than two smaller wind turbines.

The link is from the-most-solarpunk-website and is mostly about steel in general, but I wanted to pull out that one fact.

Wind and solar energy are not “good for the environment”; they pollute; it’s just that we hope they pollute less than the alternative. One major reason they pollute is because they require a lot of steel to build. But the household-scale or village-scale ones use less

de Decker is citing: Topham, Eva, et al. “Recycling offshore wind farms at decommissioning stage.” Energy policy 129 (2019): 698-709.