G'Day, Thanks to Dave, Craig and all for their support of the need for scientific rigour. But back to kayaking relevance. (Ibm stuck at home having to do carbon accounting for a book but you guys have no excuse, you could be out kayaking or repairing boats! :~) Why on earth would anyone use a Hummer with its 13 to 18L/100km fuel consumption (4.5 to 6.5 tonnes of CO2-e per year). I'm not so untidy that I can't fit all my gear into a small to medium sized car. Building a car produces VERY ROUGHLY 3 to 6 tonnes of CO2-e about 14% of what a medium sized car would produce burning petrol over 150,000 km. But LCA analysis is nowhere near an exact science, the assumptions often involve high levels of error and uncertainty. For both these reasons the LCA debate is a bit irrelevant. So maybe not a Hummer for kayaking. But OTOH the trouble with a Prius is that on long trips my friends tell me the kayak racks tend to slip back on the curved roof of the car. In any case the main benefit of a Prius is for city driving in traffic jams. Using a combination of electric bike, bus, train, storage of a kayak down by the water and a Toyota Corolla has brought my car driving CO2-e down from about 4 tonnes a year to less than 1 tonne CO2-e and saved me about $1500 enough to buy a decent second hand kayak:) My point is that if someone hasn't yet tried, it could be feasible for them to save money, reduce GHG production hugely and still get to the put in. (BTW to answer a question put about a year ago b Two separate and equally crude estimates suggest that a new commercial sea kayak in Australia has taken VERY ROUGHLY one to two tonnes of CO2-e by the time its sold.) All the best and a happy New Year to you all, PeterO References are 1. The Australian Green Vehicle guide 2. Australian National Greenhouse Accounts (NGA) Factors 3. "Balancing Act: A triple-bottom-line analysis of the Australian economy", Vol 3, section, Ships and Boats. 4. Automobiles: Electric vs. Gasoline Seikei University (Tokyo), 2001. Institute for Life Cycle Assessment *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Wed Dec 31 2008 - 19:15:26 PST
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