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And when compared to air travel and hotel stays (which come with large water and heat costs associated with daily laundry) it's actually less of a carbon footpr
by iancmceachern 6y ago
And when compared to air travel and hotel stays (which come with large water and heat costs associated with daily laundry) it's actually less of a carbon footprint.
- tomjakubowski 6y agomind showing your work?
- iancmceachern 6y agohttps://stanfordmag.org/contents/when-is-flying-greener-than-driving-essential-answer https://stanfordmag.org/contents/when-is-flying-greener-than... https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-math-of-flying-vs-driving/ https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2015/09/evolving-climate-... "In addition, Sivak suggests carpooling, as having three or more person in a vehicle “completely” changes the comparison with flying. Indeed, with a few people in the car, “driving becomes less energy intensive than flying (even after taking into account the increased weight that the vehicle needs to carry).”" Edited to add quotes.
- tomjakubowski 6y agoThe comment was comparing two people taking an RV, not a commuter car, to air travel and hotel stays. I failed to mention it but was most interested in how the hotel laundry carbon footprint was a big factor.
- iancmceachern 6y agoThere are plenty of rvs that get similar fuel efficiency to cars. Anything on the sprinter chassis gets over 20 mpg typically. The laundry footprint is a large factor when considering hotel stays. If we add up both the carbon costs of the hotel stay and airfare added together it seems like it adds up to more than the RV option. That's all I was trying to highlight, I haven't done a research paper on it, just my perception.
- farnsworth 6y agoPeople don't stay in hotels getting daily laundry for months at a time
- Taylor_OD 6y agoYou haven't worked in consulting huh?
- chrisseaton 6y agoPeople absolutely do this. Some people literally live in hotels.
- Johnny555 6y agoThey do if they are on the kind of cross country tour that they'd otherwise make in an RV. Otherwise the argument becomes "Staying at home is better for the environment than traveling", which is true, not not really a fair comparison.
- d3ad1ysp0rk 6y agoThe average room takes 2 loads of laundry, which would be in the neighborhood of 10kw of electricity. 1 gallon of gas represents the same energy (ignoring losses) as 33kw. The average 2017 car in the US got 25mpg. So with a 15+mpg difference, you'd need to either drive 5 miles or less per day (0.3g difference), OR average 100 miles per day and have the hotels wash the laundry 20x as much.
- sokoloff 6y agoAre you not including the air travel component of the travel (which often results in the passenger choosing to travel much farther than a typical RV trip)?
- stickfigure 6y agoThere are a lot more costs (both paid and environmental) associated with hotels than just laundry? Staff, lighting, heating. Plus eating out, taxis, and air travel. Also, retirees roaming around the country in an RV generally sit in one place for a week or two at a time.
- iancmceachern 6y agoMissing a lot of costs for hotels, also missing the air travel which is the single largest contribution to emissions in this scenario.
- peatmoss 6y agoNow I’m dreaming of a recreational dirigible. Imagine drifting from town to town at low altitudes, relative quiet, and with a comparably low fuel consumption. This sounds like heaven.
- AYBABTME 6y agoA sailboat is 95% of this but you're floating around the oceans instead of the air. In both cases you'd need to be worried about storms and hitting stuff, and in both cases you're pretty fuel efficient.