Apologies to my friend Randy Boyd for this, but I chafe at the hypocritical pounding BP is taking from the media and the public about the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico, for two reasons. First, this was an accident. Does anyone really believe BP wanted this to happen? It’s going to lose billions and billions of dollars out of pocket, and God knows how much more in public goodwill. […]
Reflecting on my earlier post here, I decided to do some quick research on criticisms of the report that claimed that the “all in” or “dust to dust” energy cost of a Hummer was less than a Prius. Here’s some of what I found: 1. An interview with the President of the company that conducted the report said that the report assumed that trucks and SUVs would have much longer […]
An article today in the Independent quotes a report for the British Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, which suggests that raising food organically may have, in some instances, more adverse impacts on the environment than traditional methods. One example given was the production of organic milk: [T]he researchers singled out milk as a particular example of the environmental challenges presented by organic farming. Organic milk requires 80 per […]
A very interesting recent study evaluated the “lifetime energy usage” of various vehicles, by looking not only at their fuel economy, but all energy costs associated with the design, manufacture, delivery, and disposal of those vehicles. The surprise? Hybrids don’t fare especially well in this analysis. For example, the Honda Accord Hybrid has an Energy Cost per Mile of $3.29 while the conventional Honda Accord is $2.18. Put simply, over […]