In article ],
Ryan Cousineau writes:
In article ,
"Simon Mason" wrote:

"ComandanteBanana" wrote in message
...
This is where my data comes from...

(Specialized catalog)

"100 calories can power a cyclist for three miles; 100 calories can
power a car 280 feet"

And since a banana has roughly 100 calories, then you can go 3 miles
per banana.

But if you drive a car to the supermarket, then you can only run 1
block...

So after making sure all my numbers are correct, I'm off to work on my
next t-shirt...

"I get 3 miles per banana, do you?"



You have got to allow for the diesel burned by the ship from Trinidad as
well.

I once calculated it for watermelons, and it takes about a third of a
litre of diesel to move a watermelon across the Pacific Ocean. I believe
rail transport is even more fuel-efficient.

http://vancouver.metblogs.com/2008/0...-not-want-not/

Yes, it is easily possible to use more gas getting fruit from the store
to your house than it took to get it from the field to the produce
aisle. That this isn't an obvious result is a bit surprising to me: you
can't spend much on fuel when the fruit costs less than a dollar at
retail.

But you must remember, goods movement is highly
inter-modal. Those watermelons going across the
Pacific Ocean have to be offloaded by motorized
cranes, and moved around by all kinds of motorized
vehicles before they ultimately end up in the
supermarket or green grocer's. And then ports
generally have a bunch of security personnel,
supervisors and other staff driving around.

Import/export demands a lot of fuel & energy,
but those costs are mitigated by volume.
Some of that mitigation can be lost via storage
fees when goods can't be immediately transported
because the destinations don't have enough room
to receive it. Juggling lead-time/lag-time can
be a Black Art.


cheers,
Tom

--
Nothing is safe from me.
I'm really at:
tkeats curlicue vcn dot bc dot ca