This is the first study that appears to examine the overall environmental cost picture and not a Blinkered view of fuel consumption only. There are many that take this blinkered view, bring down fuel consumption at any cost in the view that this is better, but discounting the damage that production and maintenance of these newer technologies does along the way.

Basically my view is that we should be taking a more holistic approach to environmental protection. Recycle, but not if it costs more in energy or fuel terms to do so by requiring more trucks on the road for example. Use alternative energies, but only when the overall environmental damage is less when doing so. Everything must be taken into account before deciding which way to go.
We have a long road to travel to get this right, but we have to get this right. Our own, our kids and their kids futures are depending on this.
Thats why things like recycling old refrigerator backs into solar collectors is in my view a correct way to go. Maybe less efficient in generating hot water overall, but Energy costs are almost nil in producing them. This is the subject of another post that I'm working on at the moment where I'll outline some DIY stuff that anyone can do.
My kids cut up old cereal boxes and milk cartons to make face masks and flowers. This is true recycling. And no-one has to come in a truck to take them away. Eventually we shred stuff and it gets used as horse bedding elsewhere.
Does this make my thoughts clearer ?

The figures don't surprise me at all, but what is your drive here? Simply discrediting the green agenda or trying to push them in new directions to actually achieve something meaningful? I mean, I can see an immediate solution, wipe out a goodly chunk of the human population of the planet, but this seems an unpopular route to take and I won't be volunteering myself.

Oh, and producing solar cells requires seriously high temperatures and some unsavory chemicals, you are spot on with that. What's needed is a wealth of ideas and a sensible way of determining which are good and which are not, maybe kite based wind power might work? Perhaps polymer based photovoltaics are a good thing? Thorium fission reactors might be good? who knows, but keep the ideas coming and don't discount a whole section of them because of a prejudice (I'm thinking of another blogger on the prejudice front BTW, before you get offended).

The very efficient Polish Girl on board knew exactly what every one of her passengers wanted to eat and drink and on the return journey even asked me whether I was going to eat the same sandwich again. This was of course made easy with the small amount of passengers on board, but a good trick nonetheless. It also gave me my second confirmation that the trains are ridiculously underpopulated all of the time.

I'm just saying that at least now we are getting to the real picture with regard to Environmental costs and we're all going to have to have a re-think in regard to which ways to go in the future. If all costs are taken into consideration, it also goes some way to explaining why a cut-throat company like Ryanair can fly you to Italy cheaper than Humper can take you to Dublin? Having to extend and subsequently maintain the rail network would appear to invalidate any environmental cost gains over flying, particularly in this country where Feeling Foul's Andrews ripped up as much network as he possibly could.

I'm more concerned however over the way we are being pushed at the moment in regard to other Green Techs., ie. windfarms, solar panels etc. This is where the spotlight should be shone before we go making any leaps of faith. Please remember that the diesel engine was originally designed to use vegetable oils but got converted to use Fossil, now we are hearing all of the stories about other technologies being bought up and hidden by big oil to prevent their use or release to the open market. We don't need the same scams operating again under different faces.

I'm hoping to do a decent piece later about proper green tech's with recycled materials, Bock willing :-)

Location, is one key factor here from my reading of this. Their point appears to be if the train system is using electricity generated by fossil fuels and is empty then it overtakes the air travel in damage if the aeroplane is full.
Full to capacity, sit in the corridor, Limerick to Dublin train still beats a single occupancy car journey up the N7 hands down, or indeed the many half empty ryanair flights leaving Shannon Airport.

We had a case here last year where the roads built to service a windfarm on a boggy mountain tore that bog layer like a blanket causing landslides.

I'm not saying they're all wrong or dangerous, but we have to tread carefully.