I thought this article hit a little too close for comfort. If you really want to call yourself an environmentalist, do what my sister-in-law did: Buy a small Toyota hatchback and put 5,000 miles a year on it for two decades.
Then there was this interesting article in the Economist discussing the future of diesel cars in America:
The dirty little secret about hybrids is that their batteries and extensive use of aluminium parts make them costly to build in energy terms as well as financial terms. One life-cycle assessment claims that, from factory floor to scrap heap, a Prius consumes more energy even than a Hummer III. Diesels are unlikely to consume anything like as much over their lifetime. That could change, of course, if some bright spark decides to replace a hybrid's petrol engine with a diesel--to launch a family car capable of 100mpg. Now there's a thought.
Actually not, Economist staff writer person. That assessment you refer to says that the diesel Jetta wagon will also use as much energy in its lifetime as the H3. And guess what? In all likelihood that diesel hybrid you cite will too, for the same reasons as the Prius and Jetta. But you would have known that had you bothered to actually read that lifecycle assessment. I don't blame you, actually. The damn thing is over 400 pages long. I know because I did read it. In fact, I built a spreadsheet with the data I gleaned from it to answer some burning questions I had.
I don't know how this study slipped past my radar screen. I'll blame Grist again, thus motivating someone to check the archives so they can rub my face in it. Here is the headline from CNW Marketing Research Inc. (headed by Art Spinella) touting the results of their research:
Hybrids Consume More Energy in Lifetime Than Chevrolet's Tahoe SUV
This conclusion was drawn from their research on the total energy used to build, maintain, operate, and recycle a car. Who could have guessed that the report was met with praise by SUV enthusiasts (and Detroit in general) and with skepticism by hybrid enthusiasts (Toyota in particular). The validity and methodological robustness of the report took a hit when CNW reviewed it a few months after the press release and concluded that maybe the Tahoe uses a little more energy than first reported (a whopping 30% more), thus consuming more lifetime "dust to dust" energy than hybrids after all. Oh, well, scratch that headline.
To give you a feel for how radical this report's findings are, consider that a Prius will consume six cents of gas per mile if gas is $3.00 a gallon. This study calculates that a Prius would consume $2.87 worth of lifecycle energy per mile (dust to dust energy) at that same $3.00 value. Here is how it works. Let's say you need a new alternator. They account for the energy needed to make the new alternator, and to replace and recycle the old one. Simply multiply that methodology as needed to get desired results.
The study still shows that a Jeep Cherokee will use less lifecycle energy than a Prius. Now, my family happens to own a Prius and a Cherokee, so I can't really lose here. However, as I look into this report, you should expect a case of extreme bias from me considering that I contribute to the best environmental blog on the planet. Bias can be largely subconscious, meaning I can't do anything about it if I tried. That's what peer review and the scientific method -- of which this post has none (and neither does the study I am about to critique) -- are for. Peer reviewing this study won't be easy. From CNW:
The database used for the Excel spreadsheets is proprietary to CNW and will not be released.
Additional data, other than what is presented on CNW Marketing Research, Inc.'s various web sites will remain unavailable to protect the proprietary nature of the data and the research methodology.
All rights to this information are held by CNW Marketing Research, Inc. Use of this information without prior approval except as noted above is strictly prohibited and will be treated as theft of intellectual property valued at US $25 million.
Anyone wanting data (even subscribers) cannot receive raw data bases. We control how data is released and maintain final approval on how information is presented because too often selective data points are used to "prove a point" rather than being complete, objective or neutral.
Sheesh. We wouldn't want people proving points now, would we? All the same, I want to at least try to come at this not as an incensed Prius snob but from the perspective that the study is likely to be correct -- if not in total, then almost certainly in part. I have always viewed the Prius as a proof-of-concept car demonstrating that environmental benignness can be used as a status symbol, hopefully setting off competition for increasing benignness, eventually leading to cars vastly superior to the Prius. Global warming has made all things environmental much more complicated.
There is nothing more deflating than having someone do extensive research (for two years in this case) and conclude that the car you bought to save the planet, a Prius, consumes more energy on a lifecycle basis than the dreaded Hummer II (a conclusion that also changed when the authors took a second look). I have done my share of status symbol bubble popping. I have pointed out the negatives of trading in a gasoline car for one that burns soy-based biodiesel, the futility of putting PV panels on a Seattle house, and the self-nullifying nature of building energy efficient rural McMansions. For all of you out there who have done those things and then read my posts after the fact ... I now feel your pain and beg your forgiveness.
This post is already long, so I am going to present some basic conclusions now before it is too late. Also, I am going to limit my conclusions to the Prius, because I own one and want to balance the bias created in the study when they lumped a bunch of hybrid drive system cars together.
Conclusions:
1) Trust me, there is nothing in this study to lose sleep over. My spreadsheet shows that in most cases, the energy costs will come way down as the number of cars sharing this technology grows over time. Things like low-weight steel, large batteries, and hybrid drive trains will become the norm if we progress to cars like diesel plug-in hybrids and hopefully from there to all electric. Another positive note is that the study shows the Prius is better than the industry average for all cars in the study, even with all of these temporary disadvantages that saddle any new technology at first.
In a nutshell, the results of the study show that the fancier the car, the more energy will be required to produce, maintain, and recycle it. There isn't an official category for "fancy" car, so its definition is in the eye of the beholder, but one can easily conclude that the Prius is a fancy car. A curvy sports car smaller than the Prius may use more lifetime energy as does a giant slab-sided Hummer II but for different reasons. The Hummer loses because it is so huge and eats a ton of gas. The sports car loses because it has unique parts that are energy-intensive to manufacture and dispose of (similar to the Prius, which also has technological start up energy costs).
2) The study contains its share of bias. But then, what study doesn't? If an author expected (hoped for, wanted) a study to show that cars (and hybrids in particular) use more energy on a lifetime basis, then the hundreds of assumptions made would tend to be subconsciously skewed to get that desired result. Spinella has to be glad he got the results he did. His company has received tremendous exposure from press interest. In other words, he didn't just stumble onto these results: he went looking for them to prove a point. He suspected hybrids might be worse than many regular cars for total lifetime energy and that is why he initiated the study.
Spinella knows what he is doing, having funded this study out of his own pocket to avoid the inevitable accusation of being called a shill for big whatever. You could argue that he is still kowtowing to Detroit, who has probably buttered much of his bread, but I don't think that is the case. Judging from the many comments I have read he just isn't a big fan of hybrids.
I found this little blurb on the topic of bias at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute:
I warn students that most studies have an agenda associated with their focal factor; the authors, funders, and referees have answers they expect and want to see. Authors can manipulate the statistics to get the answer they want, and funders and referees can refuse to publish unwanted answers.
3) If you own a Prius, relax. Because the Prius presently has high status, it has replaced a lot of other high-status cars that would have been even more energy intensive (lifetime and otherwise) and it also has some of the lowest emissions of any gas-powered car you can buy. If total lifetime energy expenditure were all that mattered to most consumers, we would all walk, ride bikes, or still be driving the same car we bought twenty years ago like my sister in law. In addition, for all of you patriots wanting to cut U.S. dependence on foreign oil, a Prius will do it because most of the energy cost of manufacture is in Japan! Driving a Hummer with a support our troops sticker on it is still an oxymoron. The energy costs associated with building the Prius drop with every car made, so it may be only a matter of time before those energy costs become some of the very lowest.
4) This study could have different effects. If it is propagated by the media as gospel as has been done for ethanol and biodiesel, then it could help kill hybrid technology, the plug-in, and electric cars, locking us into Detroit's bottom line, big, high-profit, conventional cars. The initial high-energy costs of new technology force manufacturers to use more energy to build things like robots and to do research. But, over time these energy costs will dissipate. Any technology that breaks us free from the internal combustion engine must run this energy gauntlet first.
Another possible effect is that Toyota may take the report seriously, rather than continue to poo-poo it, and rapidly develop a hybrid that is also the world's most lifecycle energy efficient car. One of the lowest energy consumers in the report is a Scion xA (0.79 energy dollars per mile). Stuff a hybrid drive system in that puppy and compare it to a Hummer (3.585 dollars per mile)!
5) The conclusions are unlikely to be completely off the mark for cars in general. Hopefully, it will motivate car designers to do a better job rather than just freeze technology to avoid a temporary energy spike during research and development. I'm just glad I'm not a car designer. Imagine throwing into your design matrix the need to show total lifetime energy consumption will be lower than a competitor! Imagine trying to verify such a thing when concepts as simple as gas mileage estimates are in constant turmoil. When Pimentel tried to show that ethanol and biodiesel are energy negative by accounting for the energy to make things like tractors everyone threw out his studies. If Pimentel's studies are wrong, then so is this one.
Let me give you just a few examples of how easy it is to bias a study like this. Since facts can be hard to come by, hundreds of assumptions (educated guesses) have to be made. The results of the study are expressed as money spent on energy per mile. So, if your car goes 200,000 miles instead of 100,000, your cost per mile would be cut in half. He chose 109,000 miles for the Prius and 197,000 for the Hummer. Now, he didn't pull these numbers out of thin air. He owns a marketing research company. They have statistics to use.
It is kind of hard to categorize a Prius. He assumed the Prius is essentially a newer version of a Pinto (a small four-cylinder hatchback). I owned four Pintos in a row as an impoverished college student and not one of them made it much past 100,000. Think about it. A four-cylinder engine has twice the wear as an eight-cylinder one and should wear out a lot faster. However, there are Prius taxies that have passed the quarter million mile mark without a hitch. No Pinto ever did that! How can a four-cylinder engine do that? Well the engine has spent much of its life shut off or at low RPM because it has an electric motor to help it.
Similarly, if you assume a Hummer will be treated like a pickup truck, you can expect that it will be passed along and used to haul lumber and yard waste. But a Hummer is also hard to categorize. It isn't a truck. It is a phallic symbol for rich guys and it really doesn't have any other use outside the military. It was designed to haul combat troops, not yard waste. It is also very expensive to maintain. I think it is highly unlikely that most of these single digit MPG pigs are going to be driven very long once the shine wears off and gas goes to five bucks a gallon. Just putting a new set of tires on one of those stupid things would throw most people into hock.
All hybrids are not created equal. You can't just lump all vehicles with a hybrid drive system together. Locomotives are hybrid vehicles. The Insight, Civic, and Prius are special because of their extraordinary gas mileage. But, because they all also have some kind of hybrid drive train, the public immediately confused the hybrid logo on the back of a car with better gas mileage and even took it a step further to assume it meant environmentally superior.
A hybrid logo does not mean any of those things. Hook an electric motor to a turbo charged V-8, stuff the both of them into a huge truck and you will have a hybrid gas hog that might accelerate faster than a similar truck without the electric motor, but won't necessarily result overall in less fuel consumption. Marketing firms (similar to CNW) quickly realized that the public had associated (confused) the term hybrid with good things and that is why there are now hybrid vehicles out there that use the system mostly for impressive accelerations instead of impressive gas mileage. Like the "Hemi" logo and biodiesel stickers, people want the hybrid emblem on their car. I met a lady last week who must have told me three times that she also owns a hybrid. Because it happens to be a hybrid SUV, it looks no different from the non-hybrid, which is why she felt compelled to point the fact out.
Visibility is a necessary condition for status. That's one of the beauties of the Prius. It's a billboard on wheels.
Comments
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Biodiversivist Posted 8:53 am
12 Feb 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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sunflower Posted 9:02 am
12 Feb 2007
Buyers do not think about energy content in cars, just mpg. I remember that only the poor owned used Lincoln Continentals during the OPEC oil embargo. Soon, only the poor will drive junked Hummers.
After the infernal in the Persian Gulf, your Prius will appreciate in value.
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wiscidea Posted 9:04 am
12 Feb 2007
I was surprised by the following... "The results of the study are expressed as money spent on energy per mile. So, if your car goes 200,000 miles instead of 100,000, your cost per mile would be cut in half. He chose 109,000 miles for the Prius and 197,000 for the Hummer."
(1) How long is a car supposed to last? I have a 1994 Saturn Sedan with over 200,000 miles on it and it is running quite well. The fiberglass shell will probably last forever. Are you telling me a fancy schmancy Prius goes to the recycling bin after only 100,000 miles?! This drastically reduces the environmental advantages. Better to drive every existing gasoline-powered car into the ground before we start using the new hybrids.
(2) Are clear easy-to-comprehend numbers available for how much energy goes into manufacturing a car (including extracting materials from the Earth) and how much energy goes into moving moving it, say, 200,000 miles? Expressed in BTUs, not dollars. Where is the bulk of the energy consumed? Is it somewhere in the original post? I'll work a bit harder to find it if you tell me it is in there.
Forward!
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Biodiversivist Posted 10:08 am
12 Feb 2007
I cannot see how a poor person could afford to fuel and maintain an old Hummer. That is why I think they will be scrapped.
Wiscidea,
Suffice it to say that they have data on how long certain categories of cars are driven based on surveys. The Prius and Hummer are square pegs being jammed into round holes. How far one car goes doesn't matter. It is how long the average car goes. They have five years of data on the Prius fleet and many more for the Hummer. However, when gas prices creep up, all those statistics will change radically. Of course, they won't release the details so we have to trust that they have not fudged numbers. They are probably hoping to make a big controversy to drive business their way (at least that is what I would do).
No. Sorry. The report only shows their final results. They won't release the spread sheets showing how they got there. There is a word document that discusses the study but it is poorly organized, and incomplete. In short, they made sure there is no way to duplicate their study or even check their numbers. I also suspect that some of the data presented in that word document has been multiplied by constants to hide their true values. If that is so, it would not be too hard to find out what they are with a few iterations. I don't want to bother because the effort may be wasted if this study turns out to be crap. I transferred the tables in the word document to a spread sheet and massaged the numbers to try to duplicate their final results and came up short (the numbers don't add up). And even if I had been successful, I couldn't share that spreadsheet without risking a call from their lawyers, so, they have really locked the data down. That is the main reason you can't trust it.
All other studies have shown that 80% of the energy goes into keeping a car moving. This study flips those numbers saying about 10-20% goes into moving it, and 80% is used making, and finally recycling and scrapping it. It essentially suggests that gas mileage is irrelevant when compared to the rest of the energy consumed. Weird huh?
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Gar Lipow Posted 10:38 am
12 Feb 2007
The other is a little trick you will find if you plow though the study. It includes energy used to make the factories that make the hummers, and the energy used to make the factories than make the prius. It even includes embedded energy for R&D. Fine - that is what a lifecycle study should do.
But then it does not allocate that over how much of the useful life of the factories have been used. Instead it divides by the number of vehicles produced. Of course the Hummer has been around a lot longer, so Hummer factories divide their embedded energy over a lot more Hummers than Prius factories.
Do you see the dishonesty of that. The way to allocate capital expenditures, including embedded energy within capital expenditures, is to depreciate it. By the method the study used, the very first Prius must have been very energy intensive indeed, since it included the entire stock of embedded energy in the whole factory, plus all R&D done. But not to worry: by the method used in the study, the embedded energy in your Prius decreases everytime a new Prius rolls off the assembly line!
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birdboy Posted 11:25 am
12 Feb 2007
Anyway, it's not about energy consumption, it's about emissions- both real (CO2) and imagined (see how cool).
a liberal in redsville
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Jason D Scorse Posted 12:04 pm
12 Feb 2007
J.S.
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:28 pm
12 Feb 2007
Driving a small used car and mitigating CO2 is the most efficient way for an individual but, used cars have to come from new ones. The goal is to motivate tens of millions to want environmentally benign cars. Step one is to pin down a way to measure environmental benignness. The EPA has a green car score but that may be woefully inadequate in the absense of real peer reviewed lifecycle analysis.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:48 pm
12 Feb 2007
About that CNW hybrid study
We have gotten a number of inquiries asking for our take on the CNW study that claims that hybrid vehicles are a net-environmental loser due to the additional production and disposal costs. On the face of it, we are skeptical of their claims, but we are taking a close look at the report's findings before we make an official reaction.
Our skepticism, is based on several previous studies undertaken by very well-respected analysts. We thought it would be helpful to point these out so everyone will understand that the CNW study does not exist in a vacuum.
The 2001 MIT study called "On the Road in 2020: An Assessment of the Future of Transportation Technology" (.pdf) used a life cycle analysis that concluded that increasing fuel efficiency with hybrid technology, is a net energy and global warming pollution winner.
Andrew Burnham, Michael Wang, and Paula Moon at the Center for Transportation Research of Argonne National Labs recently gave presentation called "Energy and Emission Effects of the Vehicle Cycle" at the 2006 SAE World Congress. One of the key the conclusions is "Total energy cycle energy use decreases for advanced powertrains & lightweight vehicles... Improved fuel economy offsets increase in vehicle cycle energy."
Heather L. MacLean and Lester B. Lave of Carnegie Mellon University published a 1998 life-cycle assessment which concluded that 85 percent of energy use associated with a conventional vehicle's life cycle is attributable to operation. Only 15 percent is attributable to manufacturing and disposal. Given that, it seems implausible that a 50 mpg rated Honda Civic Hybrid could be worse for the environment than a 17 mpg rated Hummer H3, even if it took twice as much energy to make the hybrid and it is driven half as much before it is replaced.
A brief summary of the Carnegie Mellon study mentioned above can be found on the website of the Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment here.
Jason, you asserted that...
you can go even farther....
buying a used toyota or honda that gets 35 miles to the gallon and using the savings to donate to climate change mitigation efforts or planting trees is likely way better than buying a prius as far as the environment goes
...but this seems shortsighted to me. First of all, CO2 emissions are not the only issue. Newer cars, in general, produce much less air pollution than older models do, and gas-electric hybrid vehicles in particular are dramatically less-polluting. Moreover, if only a very small number of people buy more fuel-efficient vehicles that employ advanced technologies, what economic incentive will manufacturers have to continue making them, to introduce new models, and to invest in technological advances that will boost fuel economy and reduce emissions of all kinds even more? In other words, if one has the means to buy a new gas-electric hybrid outright or doesn't mind taking on the debt, doing so seems to me to be beneficial overall.
biod, I think you overstate the case when you claim...
We are not running out of energy. We have coal out the butt.
It seems to me that the issue isn't whether or not we're "running out" of energy. For geologic and economic reasons, we'll never pump the last drop of oil out of the ground, extract the last cubic foot of natural gas, or mine the last pound of coal. When it comes to energy supply, what matters is not so much the total quantity of an energy source that's ultimately recoverable over the long-term but the rate at which we can extract or capture a particular source of energy and its energy-return-on-investment (EROI), or energy profit.
Also, while it's typically claimed that we have 200 years of coal left, that assumes current rates of consumption continue. Given the likelihood that global oil production will peak in the near-term (if it hasn't already), North American natural gas production has already peaked, and dramatically increasing natural gas imports would be logistically and politically problematic, expensive, and energy-intensive, that seems to me to be a highly questionable assumption. We'll burn through that "200-year supply" of coal a lot quicker if we start turning a whole lot of it into liquid transportation fuels in a desperate attempt to keep the "non-negotiable" American way of life going. It also doesn't take into account the fact that the remaining coal is lower in quality and coal's EROI is declining.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:50 pm
12 Feb 2007
I'm glad YOU did it bio-d.
What is interesting is how the initial conclusion that hummers are greener than priuses gets the headline, and the correction, issued later on,that, whoops, we were wrong priuses are greener than hummers is ignored.
Like the extensive explanations on how GHG climate change is a natural phenomenon, or a liberal conspiracy, or that hurricane intensity is not increasing from global climate change, or that clean coal, ethanol, and nuclear power will save the planet.
If you simply ignore this stuff, it eventually comes out it was all based on well paid for lies.
Just like this "study" did. But the correction is always in almost non-existent print. That's a shame.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Delay And Deny Posted 4:27 pm
12 Feb 2007
They have two means of propulsion. Thus they carry around more weight than is necessary to move the car around.
Still with a good old "dumb car" like a Chevy Cobalt...then get a fuel cell car.
Also, just wait until your Prius needs major repairs....har har har.
The Texeme Construct offers international text memetics construction and textcasting services.
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Brudaimonia Posted 4:52 pm
12 Feb 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 6:10 pm
12 Feb 2007
Zero lifecycle fossil energy cost. Beat that hummers.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Jason D Scorse Posted 12:13 am
13 Feb 2007
Also, the idea that me and millions of others should pay thousands of dollars each out of our own pockets to subsidize hybrids so that later on they will be better doesn't make sense.
It would do much more good to save the money and use it for a host of other things like helping AIDs patients or conserving habitat- and yes, I do this with my money, it's not just theoretrical.
Let's get carbon priced correctly and the market will provide all of the necessary incentives.
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:51 am
13 Feb 2007
DrX, very good point about corrections not making the headlines.
We should not assume this study is completely wrong, but we also can't just buy it without serious review. Obviously these kinds of studies are complex and subject to interpretation. The lifecycle analysis of ethanol is a perfect example. One study shows it energy negative. The corn institute shows it way positive, and a peer reviewed study in Science last year validated it, matter settled. But, it was reversed again by a study from MIT a few months ago. It comes down to a matter of probability. The method used by MIT should be applied to this study as well.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Biodiversivist Posted 1:11 am
13 Feb 2007
That subsidy is being used by conservatives to bash hybrids and it has done nothing to advance the cause. The same government enabled our car companies to implement the flex fuel debacle in an attempt to keep selling SUVs under the auspice that they are now "green."
Government has its place. Only it can tax carbon or allow cap and trade--the creation of level playing fields. It has to stop stacking the deck.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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zoonunit Posted 1:40 am
13 Feb 2007
When calculating the cost of a part, did the study take into consideration the energy expended by the person building the part? Or perhaps the energy demands of the building where parts were assembled? Bigger parts probably need bigger buildings, hence more energy. How about all the energy and resources expended on advertising? The Prius hasn't had to be advertised at all, but look at the total ad budget for Hummers. Did this study add in the cost of other consumables like tires? (A Hummer's tire is at least twice the size of a Prius and wears out faster)
There are far too many variables in a company the size of GM or Toyota for any outsider to quantify manufacturing costs into some quasi-figure.
There's a simpler and perhaps more accurate method of calculating a car's total manufacturing energy expenditure: its cost. You see, auto manufacturers spend millions of dollars over decades to determine the precise manufacturing costs of their vehicles. It's the only way they can set an accurate sales price and make a decent profit. Otherwise, they go out of business. (Judging from GM's current situation, perhaps they've underpriced the Hummer) I trust Toyota's accounting department far more than the dubious calculations of this ambitious study.
Cost is an excellent indicator of energy usage, since all energy and resources have an established market value that finds its own level. If a Hummer used less total energy to produce than a Prius, then its total price would be lower, plain and simple. But of course it's not. Therefore, something stinks in this analysis.
I won't even go into the banal assumption that a Hummer will last twice as long as a Prius. Has this guy ever looked at the average service life of Toyota vehicles vs. GM vehicles?
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sunflower Posted 1:55 am
13 Feb 2007
Our motivation was global warming mitigation (and car value). The big sales motivator for most people was the high price of oil.
The interest in saving energy is low now that oil is priced cheap (thanks to Saudi Arabia competing with Iran). The hybrid subsidies were just plain stupid, nothing new there.
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Biodiversivist Posted 2:00 am
13 Feb 2007
Yes
"Or perhaps the energy demands of the building where parts were assembled?"
Yes
"How about all the energy and resources expended on advertising?"
Yes
"Did this study add in the cost of other consumables like tires?"
Yes. In fact, according to my spreadsheet, the Hummer tires took three times more dust to dust energy. Which makes sense. The rest of the data wasn't as easy to parse out.
Like I said, without peer review of the data, we can't say much about the studies validity. But they claim to have covered every concievable base.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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scatter Posted 2:09 am
13 Feb 2007
It's a very poorly written document which leads to an intense headache after a few chapters. It's quite clever really as it means the journalists will never acutally read the thing but instead just quote from the introductory paragraph as that economist article did.
On the face of it it appears to be exhaustively researched but it's quite interesting to do a simple piece of arthimetic: 312 cars x 4,000 datapoints per car = 1.25 million datapoints in total. CNW claims it took two years to collect the data. That's 1,700 datapoints a day or one a minute. My how industrious they are over at CNW Marketing Research!
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amazingdrx Posted 2:29 am
13 Feb 2007
Do hummers still get that 100k tax credit instituted under the Reagan administration, or was that reduced to 75k?
I guess JS doesn't like to complain about those kinds of subsidies?
"Under the new plan, a business owner who purchases a $110,000 Hummer H1 in 2003 can now deduct a total of $106,000 in the first year (see table)."
http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/whitepapers/SUVtaxbreak.htm
Hmmm, a subsidy dissing economist who isn't familiar with this provision in the tax code?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:40 am
13 Feb 2007
You don't have to spring for a new hybrid to achieve air pollution reductions, either. The low-cost 2007 Toyota Yaris scores either a 6 or a 7 (same explanation for the difference as for the Prius) on the EPA scale and its MPG rating is 34/40 (manual trans) or 34/39 (automatic).
I also want to note that I wasn't trying to tell you or anyone else who thinks it's wiser to continue driving an older vehicle instead of buying a new hybrid that you should do the latter. All I was trying to do is make it clear that reasonable people can come to different conclusions about which is the wisest course of action, that the answer is not as clearcut as you asserted. I chose to buy a used 2000 Honda Insight myself in which I've averaged just over 60 MPG over almost 2 1/2 years. Unfortunately, I discovered that it's Air Pollution Score was only a 2 after I'd already bought it. Life is full of tradeoffs, ain't it?
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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amazingdrx Posted 3:01 am
13 Feb 2007
It saves even more energy than keeping the old gas hog or buying a brand new plugin hybrid.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:32 am
14 Feb 2007
A hummer will use enough to fill my basement half full.
According to the study, it would take enough gas to fill five of my basements to make and recycle a single Hummer.
It would take two to make and recycle a single Prius.
Basement dimensions: 8x25x30
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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Jason D Scorse Posted 3:59 am
14 Feb 2007
As to air pollution ratings on my 1988 Volvo all I am going by is the recent results of my CA smog test, in which my car places in the bottom 10% for emissions in CA, but possibly new cars are cleaner on some dimensions not measured by the smog check.
J.S. teaches environmental economics and blogs at http://www.voicesofreason.info.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 5:01 am
14 Feb 2007
Emissions controls have been improving steadily over the years, largely driven by California's increasingly stringent regulations, but only the most recently introduced or redesigned models are likely to be equipped with the latest technology (though it's important to check Air Pollution Scores; not all new vehicles achieve the same emissions reductions). Most if not all of the hybrid models currently on the market are either Ultra-Low Emission Vehicles or Advanced Technology-Partial Zero Emission Vehicles.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 5:25 am
14 Feb 2007
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Biodiversivist Posted 4:11 am
15 Feb 2007
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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spaceshaper Posted 5:36 am
15 Feb 2007
Here's a little scenario which may illustrate the point:
First world environmentalist with sufficient disposable income buys Prius, trades in old car. Old car wholesaled to Mexico, continues to run for another twenty years with increasingly bad emissions, hits the 200K wall, left to rust in a corner. End of life for old car at thirty years/200K miles.
Environmentalist runs Prius for five years at 5K miles a year. Trades in Prius for new plug-in electric car. Lives happily ever after. Prius sold to poorer environmentalist who can't afford a new one. Prius runs for another five years at 5K miles a year. Poorer environmentalist trades it in for a five-year-old plug-in. Prius batteries are about dead at ten years old. Not cost-effective to replace them - car's value has plummeted because plug-ins have made them obsolete, and they're not rugged enough to run as junkers on rough roads. End of life at ten years/50K miles.
If the Prius is a transitional technology, a thoughtful environmentalist who drives relatively little should be the last person to buy one. They are not likely to get enough energy-savings-in-use to justify the energy cost of manufacture and disposal. Only the gas-hungry road warrior who racks up 20K or more miles a year can do so. Ironic, huh?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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DaveR Posted 6:12 am
15 Feb 2007
Thanks
Dave
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Biodiversivist Posted 12:02 pm
15 Feb 2007
Environmentalist runs Prius for five years at 10K miles a year. Trades in Prius for new plug-in electric car. Lives happily ever after.
Prius sold to poorer environmentalist who can't afford a new one, who is ecstatic to finally get hands on a car that gets 50 MPG, especially since gas is now $5 a gallon. Prius runs for another ten years at 10K miles a year.
Prius batteries going strong at ten years old, remain good to 150,000 as does the small four cylinder engine thanks to reduced RPM.
Because the Prius is a transitional technology, a thoughtful environmentalist who drives relatively little should be the first to buy one. The market created will make the technology flourish and improve, allowing it to transition to the plug-in version.
Because the study shows that no car can generate enough energy-savings-in-use to nullify the energy cost of manufacture and disposal, the fact that the Prius is better than the industry average, means it remains a very wise choice for an environmentalist.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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spaceshaper Posted 12:33 pm
15 Feb 2007
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:04 pm
15 Feb 2007
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 1:34 pm
15 Feb 2007
Prius batteries are about dead at ten years old. Not cost-effective to replace them - car's value has plummeted because plug-ins have made them obsolete, and they're not rugged enough to run as junkers on rough roads. End of life at ten years/50K miles.
What evidence do you have that the Prius' battery pack would be "about dead at ten years old" with only 50,000 miles on it? As noted previously in the comments there are 2nd-generation (the 1st generation sold in the U.S.) Priuses in use as taxis with over 250,000 miles on them. There's no reason I'm aware of that age alone would cause the batteries to weaken and fail.
And the second:
Not cost-effective to replace them - car's value has plummeted because plug-ins have made them obsolete, and they're not rugged enough to run as junkers on rough roads.
There will always be older vehicles on the road unless some massive coordinated effort to replace all of them with state-of-the-art vehicles is undertaken, and I'm not holding my breath for that. Given the likelihood that global oil production will likely peak within the next several years (if it hasn't already), it seems to me that used fuel-efficient vehicles, including hybrids, are likely to hold their value much better than used gas-guzzlers.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Nucbuddy Posted 7:48 pm
15 Feb 2007
Chemical batteries, just like food and people, age via oxidation. This process can be slowed down, but it cannot be stopped.
.
batteryuniversity.com/partone-19.htm
Batteries are perishable products that start deteriorating right from the moment they leave the factory.
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spaceshaper Posted 9:05 pm
15 Feb 2007
You got me dead to rights, guv'ner. These are questionable scenarios, as are many of our assumptions about the future, including extrapolating long-term light-use Prius battery performance from short-term intensive-use examples. And while Priuses currently hold their value extremely well it is quite possible this condition will not prevail as and when much more efficient vehicles become available.
I presented this scenario which I believe is well within the cone of multiple possible futures because I think these are important factors to consider when making personal buying decisions, particularly when one's resources are limited. The traditional virtue of frugality on which sustainable resource use depends presents a conflict: the Prius is currently one of the most frugal vehicles in energy cost-in-use available, but that could change very rapidly. Indeed we all hope it does. At the the same time it is not an especially frugal choice in first cost, whether defined in energy or monetary terms.
Thus: high first cost (as with all new vehicles); low cost-in-use; possibly short time in use before obsolescence. The thoughtful and not-so-wealthy environmentalist who is considering going into heavy debt to join the hybrid club will figure their own likely miles per year into that equation and come up with their own answer.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:27 pm
16 Feb 2007
What's the basis for your suspicion that gas-electric hybrids using current technology will be obsolescent within several years? Sure, hybrid technology is likely to continue improving, and there may even be flex-fuel plug-in hybrids on the market in the next few years, but there's no reason to think everyone who chooses to drive will be able to afford to buy a new vehicle with the latest technology at that time any more than everyone who would like to buy a new hybrid can afford to do so now. It seems clear to me that less-affluent folks--including me--will still be glad to have the chance to buy vehicles with older hybrid technology rather than only have conventional vehicles to choose from, and this will likely ensure that current hybrids retain much of their value in the future.
I can think of two scenarios in which current hybrids lose their value within several years:
If major problems arise with the battery packs, though right now I know of no reason to think they will, though, at least in those vehicles using Toyota or Honda technology. My Insight has 141,000 miles on it and there's no sign of any problems with the battery pack. It would be interesting to know how the very first Priuses--sold only in Japan starting about 10 years ago--are doing. Anyone have any information on that?
If the downside of the global oil production curve after peak is so steep that gasoline becomes prohibitively expensive for all but the wealthiest people in the world, in which case there won't be many current vehicles with any resale value. Which could happen, mind you, though I'm provisionally convinced a long, undulating plateau of oil production, gradually declining over time, is a much more likely scenario. That will still cause prices to rise dramatically, but not as precipitously.
Finally, I'm not saying everyone who cares about the living world should do whatever is necessary, including going deep into debt, to switch their current automobile out for a brand-new hybrid. The point I'm trying to make is that one can make a case for the ecological benefits of that decision in a general sense; each one of us must weigh all the factors in our own lives and decide how we can best meet our transportation needs and wants while staying true to our ecological values.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 3:34 pm
16 Feb 2007
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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DaveR Posted 7:23 pm
16 Feb 2007
Dave
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spaceshaper Posted 11:29 pm
16 Feb 2007
- I'm just postulating a scenario that seems within the realm of possibility as perhaps a rather poor illustration for my deeper suspicion that frugality rather extravagance might be the strategy that will take us into a sustainable future, and making a case for discussing the Prius as an expensive consumer product with a limited life, or a routine energy-consumption device with some mitigating benefits, rather than as a savior technology which every consumer with a conscience should aspire to own.
Conversations around hybrids, even (especially?) among environmentalists, seem to revolve around an unspoken assumption that driving 10,000 and more miles a year is the birthright of every American, and we should be merely aspiring to make some baby-step reductions in the energy consumption and noxious emissions associated with that (spurious) entitlement.
What about just driving less as a personal choice?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:46 pm
16 Feb 2007
Solid oxide fuel cell/microturbine generators are 75% efficient, versus 14% for internal combustion vehicles. This design would get 5 times the mileage of an ICE car of similar size and performance.
Mass production by a large player like Toyota or Honda is needed.
Any hybrid without a plugin feature does not save a lot of gas or CO2. They are mainly a political statement and status symbol.
GM is finally making noises like they will mass produce a serial plugin hybrid, the Volt. Many are skeptical.
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/01/gm_unve ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:53 pm
16 Feb 2007
18,000 battery cycles has been reached. In a plugin hybrid that has a 25 mile electric range that would mean the battery would last for 450,000 miles. That ought to be fine for most applications.
Nuke-u-ler buddy wants one that lasts as long as nuclear waste remains dangerous? 10,000 years? hehehey.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 2:35 pm
17 Feb 2007
You seem to me to have a bad habit of making unwarranted assumptions. While I don't doubt there are drivers who feel absolved of any need to be concerned about the eco-impacts of their driving because they bought a hybrid, this isn't by any means universal. I own a used Honda Insight but I often walk and take the bus even though it would be so much easier and quicker to just take the car. In metro-Kansas City, though, the simple fact is that the transit system here is mediocre to nearly non-existent depending on where you live and where you need to go. I didn't have a car for a bit over 6 years because I didn't want to be responsible for the destructive consequences, but that choice inhibited my ability to spend time with loved ones and my flexibility to take part in activism considerably. When I received an inheritance, I consequently chose to spend it on a used hybrid. I think that's a justifiable, though imperfect, decision.
Have I or anyone else writing here claimed that hybrids are "a savior technology which every consumer with a conscience should aspire to own"? I know I haven't, and I don't think anyone else has, either. To the contrary, I've said explicitly that individuals have to weigh their own circumstances and priorities when deciding how to meet their transportation needs and wants but, for those who can afford to buy a new hybrid, doing so can be a beneficial and ecologically-justifiable choice.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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spaceshaper Posted 1:23 am
18 Feb 2007
Then apart from personal buying decisions there are the larger issues of where our activist energies are best spent. There are three? four? current threads on Gristmill in which the Prius is the center of attention. I obviously think this is way too much and that as a culture we'd be getting more bang for our virtual buck looking for ways to drive less rather than ways to drive as much on less. There are two fundamental sources for this belief, the first is that given the number of non-hybrid vehicles in the current inventory which are likely to stay in service for many years to come I think using all vehicles less would be more effective in actually addressing our energy-abuse issues, and the second is that in my personal experience communities which are not constructed around endless vehicle-miles are warmer, more inclusive, more satisfying places to live than those that are.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 12:37 pm
18 Feb 2007
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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spaceshaper Posted 12:21 am
19 Feb 2007
I am much more heartened by the undeniably quantum improvements in battery technology - which, it's my impression, has been driven more by the demand for efficient reliable rechargeable batteries for laptops, cell phones and cordless power tools than by any effort on the part of the automotive industry. While this will clearly hasten the advent of the PHEV, as for me, I'm so ready for an all-electric car.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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amazingdrx Posted 2:34 am
19 Feb 2007
This kind of conversion might be more effective as far as cost and payback. Bolt electric wheel/motors onto your front wheel drive economy car. The plugin batteries go in the trunk.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 6:41 am
19 Feb 2007
Which doesn't mean I don't empathize with or haven't shared your frustration with the slow pace of change over the years I've been an activist. When one loves the world, and the world is being destroyed, how can change ever come quickly enough? But I don't know any way to change the manner in which social change proceeds, so I just keep pushing toward the goal. Nothing else will save our free range, antibiotic-free, organic-fed bacon.
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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spaceshaper Posted 8:21 am
19 Feb 2007
Sorry to sound grinchy. But this is why Grist of all places needs to keep it real.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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John Fish Kurmann Posted 12:11 pm
19 Feb 2007
The world is sacred, and I am part of it.
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Nucbuddy Posted 3:42 pm
20 Feb 2007
How is nuclear-energy favoritism counterproductive?
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amazingdrx Posted 3:51 pm
20 Feb 2007
Huge expense, contractor corruption,contamination, proliferation and war,waste, mining,nuclear terrorism all make that true.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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