Think before you jump on Enviro band wagons

I'm a conservationist.  I love dolphins and clean air and bubbling brooks and good hunting lands.  I believe we owe it to our heirs to be responsible stewards of the land, and that being responsible means thinking things through.  Take hybrid cars (please!)...

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. ... 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... The new tests ... 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.

... 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.

Of course, comparing a Prius to a Hummer is silly.  But the Hummer still comes out on top.  Also, the author has ignored the issue of what to do with all those nasty batteries once your green little Prius had died.  What will they do to groundwater?  And I've mentioned before here that I increased my gas mileage by 50% when I discovered my instant fuel economy display and started accelerating s-l-o-o-w-l-y.

A Prius is so typical of the religious enviro's.  Better to feel good about your auto choice than to actually do good.  Well, that's wrong.  Feel free to politely educate your green brethren at your next cocktail party.

Comments

[Rob Salkowitz]

That's genuinely interesting. Here in Seattle, it feels like every other car on the road is a Prius. It's a little much, even for an otherwise-smug and green liberal like yours truly.

I read something similar about Brazil, which now uses biofuels for something like 40% of its power. Apparently the damage done to the soil and the environment in growing and refining the plant matter is completely obliterating the surrounding ecology, at a much greater financial cost than fossil fuels. No such thing as a free lunch as far as mother Earth is concerned. Sign me up for a solar car!