Akihabara News — The new Paramount+ series Landman, created by Taylor Sheridan, falsely claims that wind turbines produce more greenhouse gas emissions than oil due to their construction and transportation.
The scene, featuring Billy Bob Thornton’s character Tommy Norris, asserts that a wind turbine “won’t offset the carbon footprint of making it” within its twenty-year lifespan. This claim has been widely debunked by experts, yet it has gained significant traction in conservative media and among commentators, raising concerns about energy disinformation at a critical time for climate action.
Scientific evidence overwhelmingly contradicts the show’s assertion. A 2019 study in Environmental Science & Technology found that wind turbines offset their embodied carbon—emissions from manufacturing, transportation, and installation—in an average of 5.3 months, with a range of 1.8 to 22.5 months across over four thousand turbines.
A 2024 study in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand reported a carbon payback of 1.5 to 1.7 years for a 176-megawatt wind farm. With turbines lasting twenty–thirty years, they generate near-zero-emission energy for decades after this initial carbon debt.
In contrast, oil’s lifecycle emissions—from exploration and drilling to refining and combustion—are continuous and substantial, making it far more damaging to the climate.
Garvin Heath of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory told the Los Angeles Times that payback periods are typically under a year, rendering Landman’s claim “false or deeply misleading.”
Despite this, the scene has resonated with conservative audiences. A clip posted on the official Landman TikTok on December 2, 2024, went viral, amplified by right-leaning commentators. Fox News praised the scene as a takedown of “clean energy narratives,” while commentators like Tim Pool used it to challenge climate policies.
Critics have labeled the scene propaganda, noting its lack of in-show rebuttal. Rebecca Falcone (Kayla Wallace) offers no substantive counterargument to Norris’s rant, lending it undue credibility.
The controversy underscores a broader cultural divide over energy transitions. The scene’s viral spread, outpacing fact-checking efforts, highlights the challenge of combating disinformation when it aligns with existing biases.
Neither Sheridan nor Paramount+ has addressed the backlash, leaving critics to warn that Landman risks undermining climate progress by promoting fossil fuel narratives under the guise of entertainment.
Recent Renewable Energy Articles
China Triples US Renewable Energy Production
AI Drives Nuclear Power Renaissance