Prius vs Hummer

If you search "Prius vs Hummer" you get quite a few links. Here is one and the article that goes with it.

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188


March 7, 2007
Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage By Chris Demorro Staff Writer

Current issue: April 18, 2007
Central Connecticut State University
Editorial & Commentary
March 7, 2007
Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental DamageBy Chris DemorroStaff WriterThe Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.
Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.
The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?
You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.
However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse.
Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.
The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.
“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.
All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?
Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.
When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer - the Prius’s arch nemesis.
Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.
The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it.
So, if you are really an environmentalist - ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available - a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage - buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.
One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.

What You Can Do: Switch Some Bulbs to Compact Fluorescent

Fight Global Warming With Your Personal Action Pledge

• total bulbs pledged: 221,045
• pounds of CO2 prevented: 238,507,555

You can use this great website to find all sorts of new kinds of compact fluorescent lights (CFLs), including ones that work in dimmers. Check out the "Popular Searches" listed on the "Take the Pledge" web page.

Some links to articles about CFLs:

• A U.S. Alliance to Update the Light Bulb - New York Times
  
  
• Wal-Mart Puts Some Muscle Behind Power-Sipping Bulbs - New York Times

A Bunch of Climate Change Articles

• U.N. Study Shows Likely Impact of Global Warming - New York Times
  
  
• U.N. Draft Cites Humans in Current Effects of Climate Shift - New York Times
  
  
• Poor Nations to Bear Brunt as World Warms - New York Times
  (posted earlier as well)
  
  
• Global Warming - Reports From Four Fronts - Malawi, India, Netherlands, Australia - New York Times
  
  
• In a Test of Capturing Carbon Dioxide, Perhaps a Way to Temper Global Warming - New York Times
  
  
• Effects of climate change tallied up - news@nature.com
  Increased drought, flood and disease 'will hit poorest hardest'.
  
  
• Return of the dust bowl? - news@nature.com
  Climate change set to make the arid southwest even drier.
  
  
• Mushrooms popping up year-round - news@nature.com
  UK fungi season now longer in autumn, with an extra fruiting in spring.
  

From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype - New York Times

This article discusses some scientists critiquing "An Inconvenient Truth":

It estimated that the world’s seas in this century would rise a maximum of 23 inches — down from earlier estimates. Mr. Gore, citing no particular time frame, envisions rises of up to 20 feet and depicts parts of New York, Florida and other heavily populated areas as sinking beneath the waves, implying, at least visually, that inundation is imminent.

Bjorn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist in Denmark long skeptical of catastrophic global warming, said in a syndicated article that the panel, unlike Mr. Gore, had refrained from scaremongering. “Climate change is a real and serious problem” that calls for careful analysis and sound policy, Dr. Lomborg said. “The cacophony of screaming,” he added, “does not help.”

So too, a report last June by the National Academies seemed to contradict Mr. Gore’s portrayal of recent temperatures as the highest in the past millennium. Instead, the report said, current highs appeared unrivaled since only 1600, the tail end of a temperature rise known as the medieval warm period.

Have Guitar, Will Recycle - New York Times

Brad Mason mentioned in class on Tue. Apr. 17 that he had come across rock bands doing carbon offsets for their concerts. That reminded me of this article in the New York Times

Like few other enterprises short of a military invasion, the rock tour is designed to convert copious amounts of material and energy into spectacle — and produces equivalent amounts of waste. But in the “Inconvenient Truth” era, when even the oil and automobile industries are painting themselves green, it should come as little surprise that rock — never shy about making grand, self-congratulatory gestures — is working hard to catch up.

Lately, it is doing so with the help of organizations like Reverb, a nonprofit group devoted primarily to the green rock tour.

As for the carbon offsets, though:

Regarding carbon-offset programs, for example, Ken Caldeira, a climate scientist at the Carnegie Institution, explained, “In general, these offsets do some good, in the sense they usually help fund projects that are beneficial.”

But, he added, their benefits are hypothetical, intended to defer future emissions, while the actual tours produce significant amounts of greenhouse gases now. “Half of that carbon dioxide will still be in the atmosphere for 100 years,” he said, “and none of these offsets will change that.”

Burning buried sunshine: human consumption of ancient solar energy [PDF]

This is a link to the actual peer-reviewed paper that calculated how much paleoproduction was needed to produce a gallon of gasoline. The paper received a fair amount of attention in the media, and the following page takes you to some of the coverage it received:

"Burning Buried Sunshine" in the media
http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/BBSpress.html

Suburbs spread farther afield as more families do the math

"A great migration is rapidly changing the face -- and the faces -- of Chicago and its suburbs. Although there has been an outward exodus for more than a century, new census and other government data show that the edges of the metropolitan area are being pushed ever farther out, and at a much faster rate than had been predicted.

It's not just more people in places they weren't before. This trend has political, environmental, economical and cultural ramifications.

Rising populations give suburbs increasing clout. Some of the country's richest farmland is being paved over. More mileage driven by more cars increases the demand for foreign oil. Longer commutes mean less time at home with families. When large numbers of children enter a community they put a heavier burden on the tax base, with needs for more schools, parks, etc."