> > Another question to throw out - what is the carbon footprint of a landfill, > and how does this compare to that?
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. A related question - high speed rail is advertised as more fuel-efficient > than flying - but does that include the impact of the land you are turning > over to build the rails, terminals and depots on? 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. -- Sumant Srivathsan http://sumants.blogspot.com
