For the carbon footprinting press tha
t is the paper version of Washington City Paper, I compared the pollution reductions offered by the much-hyped solar energy installation at Dan Snyder‘s FedEx Field with the pollution contributions of the new-to-him $70 million toy, the mega-yacht Lady Anne.
After converting litres to gallons and metric tons to pounds, and assuming I carried all the ones, I determined that even with very limited use of the big boat and Redskins One, his private jet, Snyder throws a lot more bad stuff into the air just through his personal transportation modes than all 80,000 or so solar panels at his team’s stadium would take out. (The yacht is owned as part of a group, and Snyder hasn’t revealed what his use of the boat will be, so he could be greener than my calculations figured.)
Pick up a copy. Read the story. Hug a tree.
Solar power has been taking some hits from the ecologically minded lately for reasons having nothing to do with Snyder and his boat.
Turns out a huge chunk of the world’s solar panels are manufactured in China, a place where environmental regulation is a foreign concept.
Villagers in China’s Zhejiang province rioted a few weeks ago and forced a solar panel plant to shut down after chemical run-off from the facility killed every fish in a nearby lake.
But officials from NRG, the Redskins’ partner in the stadium installation, say all the solar panels soaking in sun at FedEx Field come from two American firms, SunPower Corp. and Konarka Technologies, and Schott Solar AG, a German manufacturer.
“None were manufactured in China,” says NRG Energy spokesperson Lori Neuman.
The real shocker for me during my crunching exercise came when I figured out how much it costs just to fill up the gas tanks on the Lady Anne.
The fuel cells hold 55,000 gallons of diesel. Last week, a gallon of diesel was selling for $7.04 US per gallon at the Barcadere Marina in George Town, Cayman Islands, where the boat is flagged. That means just one fill-up would cost nearly $389,000
How many $9 Bud Lights will the Redskins have to sell to get that sum, did you ask?
Well, with what little juice is left in my calculator after the boat story, it looks like: 43,222 game-day beer sales per tank for the Lady Anne, give or take a binge.
Drink up, Skins fans.