Gorski, the UAE definitely knows. In McDonald Arabia's press release (link given in my article), it says that the project was funded in part by Dubai FDI, the foreign investment promotion arm of the Department of Economic Development.
The story states that these 800,000 miles have been loged in the UAE. Does teh UAE know about this? I can't see how they would allow a substitute for petroleum-based fuels to be used in their countries.
We're moving from trivia to nitpicking over the number of digits used in conversion. The conversion factor I used was 1.6093 Km/mile. You conversion factor calculates out to 1.609344498. We're talking about a difference of 0.0027% There is no way the vehicles odometers would be that accurate.
In any case, the original error of your article according to your calculation was a significant 28.747% and according to mine was 28.744%. In either case a significant error magnified by the headline.
As the original figure was "over 1 million kilometers" lets just say "over 600,000 miles" rather than (800,000 miles) would have done the trick.
Thanks, bobjengr. I don't see anything wrong with McDonald's saving money from a green venture that also reduces carbon emissions. I think it's naive to expect that they wouldn't want to do it for that reason. Many companies have said they're happy to convert to biofuel, or be sustainable in other ways, as long as it's also economically feasible. Such as DuPont saying it's happy to shift all its performance plastics products to bioplastics--assuming that it makes both technical and economic/financial sense to do so http://www.designnews.com/document.asp?doc_id=239662 That, after all, is the real world.
Very informative Ann. I certainly applaud McDonalds for this effort and I, like everyone else, hopes this was seen as a corporate responsibility and not solely as a money-making venture. The very fact they were looking is laudable. Let's hope other companies follow suit and do what they can relative to conservation.
cookiejar, my bad--but your conversion is also wrong. My bad was taking the conversion given in source material instead of checking it with an online conversion engine as I usually do. Those give me 621,371 miles, not the 621,388 you cited.
Ha, Jenn, I can completely relate to McDonald's as a "guilty pleasure." There is actually one in the area here in Portugal (they are everywhere, of course!) and I have gone maybe three times in the three years I have lived here. Once a friend and I went and promised we would never speak of what we did again. ;) But if they are trying to be greener in their practices, it makes me feel a little bit better about an occasional indulgence. At least all that horrible oil is going to a good cause!
I agree, Liz. McDonald's, or fast food in general, may not be the best choice, but it's nice to see the company trying to do the right thing.
That being said, I will admit that I allow my daughter to indulge in a happy meal every once in a while. Besides the hamburger, the fries are substituted with apple slices and they offer milk in place of the standard soda. So, how bad can it be?
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