[SustainableTompkins] Hybrid parade: Efficiency does equal emissions reductions

[Andy Bailey Goodell]

An interesting look at the math, but a hybrid still has significantly more
embodied energy. Two drive systems, battery packs, and specialized parts
that can't be substituted with re-used parts from older vehicles. You can't
convince me that buying a new hybrid is better for the environment than
continuing to use an existing car. 

While I probably would consider myself an anti-consumer for the most part
(why do people buy so much crap again?), it doesn't help your argument to
say that I wouldn't buy a hybrid for anti-consumerism's sake. Would you buy
a new car every time something better comes out because it gets a little
more mileage? I don't think so.

And just to mention the auto-idle mode: my car does not idle at stops
either. It's amazing how it takes a computer and battery power from a Prius
to shut off the engine. I just turn the key, it really isn't that hard.


Andy Goodell
1894 Charlotte Creek Road
Oneonta, NY 13820
(603) 831-0356
http://geekguyandy.com

-----Original Message-----
From: sustainabletompkins-bounces at lists.mutualaid.org
[mailto:sustainabletompkins-bounces at lists.mutualaid.org] On Behalf Of Shawn
Reeves
Sent: Friday, March 21, 2008 2:46 PM
To: Sustainable Tompkins County listserv
Subject: Re: [SustainableTompkins] Hybrid parade: Efficiency does equal
emissions reductions

Several days back, Andy wrote:
>  Don't be fooled... While buying a Prius allows for lower tailpipe 
>emissions, don't assume that makes it instantly better. Do you know how 
>much energy goes into mining nickel for Prius batteries from Sudbury,
Ontario?

Whoa, whoa, whoa....Let's settle this with another simple,
back-of-the-envelope calculation. I'm not going to type everything out this
time, but anyone that can do arithmetic should be able to follow.
Conservative average lifetime of car: 100k miles Gas over lifetime: 3k if
Prius, 5k if typical car, 10k if Hummer Price spent on fuel, assuming
conservative $3/gal: $9k Prius, $15k if typical, $30k if Hummer Savings in
fuel cost for Prius over typical: $6k Now, do you think that $6k worth of
energy goes into the production of one Prius? Let's see...
Take aluminum, a very energy-intensive metal.
Cost to make enough aluminum from bauxite just to produce about 8 cans: 1kWh
Mass of Mug Root Beer can in my bag of returnables: 13g Electricity you can
buy with $6k: 30MWh Amount of aluminum you can make with 30MWh: 3Mg, or 3
tons.
Amount of aluminum, nickel, and other energy-intensive metals in a Prius (a
guess): 300kg.
That "Sudbury" argument isn't even close to being right, off by about a
factor of 10! But, since it appeared in an episode of Boston Legal, half of
America believes it. TV screws the environment again.
If you didn't figure out the answer to my question above, it is "Nope!" I
venture about $6k went to labor, $1k went to shareholders and other
financial stakeholders, $1k to embedded energy, $30k to R&D (at current
cumulative production; this will, of course, go down as long as people don't
get scared by the naysayers), and $8k to parts suppliers not including
embedded energy.

Oh, and one more thing: Did you know that the steel they use to make Chevy
Venture Vans and almost every car, is roughly 10% nickel (and even more
chromium)? So, even if the Sudbury argument held true for the Prius, it
would damn the heavier vehicles even more. Can anyone say "Chrome, me?
Yum!"?

It's a nice sentiment, not to want to buy and dump things; but, if you look
at CFLs and HE washing machines, and now hybrids, it saves energy to
replace, not to be anti-consumerist just for anti-consumerism's sake.
Andy does point to something that trumps all of this, car-sharing. 
But, he should have fairly compared 7 people in the van to 4 people in the
Prius, not cheat by having only one person in the Prius. Then the comparison
would be 182 people miles per gallon for the van, and 160-220 pmpg for the
Prius, depending on how heavy those people are. 
The Prius, with it's auto-idle mode etc. would be better for the air in
downtown Oneonta, but at the pump, about equal.
I'm always sorry to sound so pedantic, but there are just so many claims and
sentiments out there that aren't backed up. It's hard for a physics teacher
to watch them go unanswered, but I wish I could be more of a coach than a
pedant.
Whether it's global climate change or peak oil, we're all noticing that
personal economies (how much milea
carbons, are finite; as part of the entire population, how much impact am I
allowing all of us to have?). Sad, bad news for Adam Smithians and
anti-Communists.

--
-Shawn Reeves
shawn at energyteachers.org
http://energyteachers.org

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