Posts for Studies
Auckland Housing crisis – all the wrong assumptions and information
The median house price in Auckland is now at $750K, a number that our family would probably struggle to afford with us two parents working in well advanced positions. Clearly investors are currently setting the market price as they have access to the required funds,…
How Much Room Do We Need To Supply The Entire World With Solar Electricity?
Very impressive map graphics as to how much desert space we’d need to supply world energy. In 2009, the total global electricity consumption was 20,279,640 GWh. The sun creates more energy than that in one hour. The tricky part is collecting that energy and converting…
Solar Thermal Is Really, Really Dead – or isn’t it?
A very interesting article on solar thermal and solar PV. it’s now cheaper to heat water with a photovoltaic array than solar thermal collectors. It would be quite interesting to make up some numbers and comparisons for New Zealand since the install cost for a…
Renewable Energy: The Vision And A Dose Of Reality
As the two of us started to evaluate the feasibility of such a change, we took on an even larger challenge: to determine how 100 percent of the world’s energy, for all purposes, could be supplied by wind, water and solar resources, by as early…
The ugly side of solar panels
Via Low-tech Magazine, 03-03-2008 New research shows, albeit unintentional, that generating electricity with solar panels can also be a very bad idea. In some cases, producing electricity by solar panels releases more greenhouse gases than producing electricity by gas or even coal. Producing electricity from…
Carbon Footprint of beef
Via Ecofriendly Company, 27-04-2010 According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, animal husbandry contributes more to global warming than the whole of the transport sector. This news is also significant to many canteens and restaurants. The employees favourite: steak as a…
Carbon Footprint of french fries
via Ecofriendly-Company.com, 20-06-2010 So loved throughout Europe, french-fried potatoes are to be found on the menu of every canteen, and nearly every restaurant and bar. How they are prepared though is astounding when it comes to the carbon footprint. There are so many different ways…
The Role of LCA in Decision Making in the Context of Sustainable Development
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a standardised methodology for the quantification of the potential environmental impacts of processes and systems. The data provided can be used effectively to assist in decision making situations. This paper gives examples on how the results from LCA studies and…
Too much building waste
From EcoBob, 24/11/2009 Construction, maintenance and renovation of buildings account for around 40 per cent of the world’s material flows, so it’s always sad to see an old building reduced to a pile of rubble.