[SustainableTompkins] I hate to drought on your hybrid parade but...

[Margaret McCasland]

>This list would be the place to seek opinions on the credibility of the
>following
>http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080310094555.htm
>
>
>[this is indirectly from a press release of an upcoming issue of the  ACS
>journal "Environmental Science and Technology"...actual article contents are
>sketchy translation of an abstract.]

Below is the actual content of the summary.  To use the authors' own 
point that  "policy makers often neglect the impact that [FILL IN THE 
BLANK] could have on [FILL IN THE BLANK], some balanced systems 
thinking is needed here. Their analysis (at least in this summary) 
seems to be so narrow that I wouldn't call it good "systems 
thinking." 

Hybrid cars--or any other "solution"--need to be placed in a complete 
and balanced systemic context. Assuming that we will continue to 
produce electricity in the current absurd ways (which ARE 
water-hungry) is well, continuing to think absurdly. There's a lot we 
didn't know and/or that the "deciders" decided to ignore when our 
current electric power system was allowed to form. Saying hybrid cars 
aren't a good idea because the ways we currently generate electricity 
are foolish (my term, my bias) is being very selective about our 
options.

"Dissing" hybrids is a distraction from more serious dangers to our 
usable water. Continued use of fossil fuels and industrial 
agriculture are probably the two most serious drains on our water 
resources. Global climate disruption has multiple ways of indirectly 
reducing the available usable water, but on-going human activities 
also directly reduce it significantly. Let me know if you need some 
examples.

  "Down the road" we will be able to have clean, green, safe AND 
water-efficient electricity to power plug-in electrics. And we'd 
better get there sooner rather than later, which means getting there 
as directly as possible, without a lot of detours through hydrogen 
fuel, E85 gasahol, hybrid cars, etc. The link below shows how 
feasible it is to produce enough* electricity with do-able 
technology. 
*Conservation and efficiency are, of course, an important part of 
thinking systemically.

See the executive summary of a plan for a coal- AND nuclear-free 
future that discusses water use (both those technologies--which boil 
water to create steam to turn magnets that create electricity are 
major water hogs).  http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/summary.pdf

A related slide show includes the following bullet points (paraphrased):
	--re: today's current coal or nuke power plants: a 1,000 MW 
plant operating at full capacity needs 20 million gallons/day for its 
cooling tower.
	--over 1,000,000,000,000 gallons per year (4.5 million 
acre-feet) of fresh water is consumed by fossil fuel and nuclear 
plants

Good reasons to phase out coal and nuke-fired plants, but not good 
reasons to keep driving gasoline-powered cars.

Because of the "embodied energy" it takes to produce them (including 
water), people should only buy hybrids if they are buying a new car 
anyway (well, if they're trading a Hummer for a hybrid, they should 
probably send the Hummer to the scrap heap and buy the hybrid now, 
but in general, not putting another NEW car on the road is a better 
choice than a hybrid). I'm hoping I can keep my 95 Subaru going long 
enough to skip the hybrid phase and go straight to all electric.

Of course the best choice is to minimize use of any care that uses 
carbon-based fuels.

Trains for people, not for coal! (with more engines that are 
diesel-electric hybrids in the near future, then clean, green 
electric trains wherever possible).

Off to promote a carbon tax!

Margaret

PS: All this messy weather (oscillating just above and below 32 and 
full of lake-effect moisture) was predicted by climatologists because 
the Great Lakes (and Finger Lakes) are a bit warmer all year-round 
than they have been historically.  And I can't imagine that having a 
coal plant using lake water for its cooling tower helps any.  And 
then there are all those nuke plants on Lake Ontario--the source of a 
lot of our winter "weather." Never heard this aspect of "heat added 
locally to heat from global warming" discussed by climatologists, so 
I don't know how big a factor it is.

FROM	http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080310094555.htm
Eco-minded drivers in drought-prone states take note: A new study 
concludes that producing electricity for hybrid and fully electric 
vehicles could sharply increase water consumption in the United 
States.

In the study, Carey W. King and Michael E. Webber note that policy 
makers often neglect the impact that fleets of hybrid and electric 
vehicles could have on already-scarce water resources. They 
calculated water usage, consumption, and withdrawal during petroleum 
refining and electricity generation in the United States.
Each mile driven with electricity consumes about three times more 
water (0.32 versus 0.07-0.14 gallons per mile) than with gasoline, 
the study found.
"This is not to say that the negative impacts on water resources make 
such a shift undesirable," King and Webber emphasized. "Rather this 
increase in water usage presents a significant potential impact on 
regional water resources and should be considered when planning for a 
plugged-in automotive economy."
The article, "The Water Intensity of the Plugged-In Automotive 
Economy" is scheduled for the June 1 issue of  Environmental Science 
& Technology.
Adapted from materials provided by American Chemical Society, via 
EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.