> > For a non-biodegradable component of the landfill, the carbon footprint > should be zero, right, since it is not discharging GHGs into the > atmosphere. > It's only when the stuff is combusted that the footprint is calculated. > This > is not considering the cost of transporting the trash to the landfill. >
There's an opportunity cost to a landfill - you could forest the area instead. My question was more about how trivial or significant that opportunity cost was. > Probably not, but if one considers the land investment for constructing > airports, I'd imagine that those costs are more or less the same, if not > less for high-speed rail systems. Again, I haven't drilled into this in > much > detail, but just going by what seems reasonable to me. > But with airports you construct only the airports, while for the rail systems you construct rail terminals, rail lines, depots and so forth. Ofcourse this is handwaving until I get the numbers (in acreage as well as money). I will JFGI... eventually. But since we're now on costs and money - acquiring rights of way for a rail line would cost a lot of money, and a lot of this would be transaction costs since we're talking a whole bunch of landowners. With the same money you could buy up contiguous land, forest it, and offset the carbon dioxide the air transport was generating, no? -- Aadisht Khanna Address for mailing lists: aadisht.gro...@gmail.com Personal address: aadi...@aadisht.net
