Today, a couple stories about trade-offs in the built environment. 
Martin Holladay (the Energy Nerd) weighs the benefits and costs of deep energy residential retrofits and questions the value in terms of energy savings and cost of significant amounts of additional insulation rather than solar photovoltaics (via GreenBuildingAdvisor.com). Via NPR, a story about the trade-offs between having power lines above ground, where they are vulnerable to the elements, or underground.
Zero Resource 