A Hummer more efficient than a Prius?

[Rick Lee]

Some interesting numbers in this one.

Fuzzy Climate Math

By George F. Will
Thursday, April 12, 2007; A27


In a campaign without peacetime precedent, the media-entertainment-environmental complex is warning about global warming. Never, other than during the two world wars, has there been such a concerted effort by opinion-forming institutions to indoctrinate Americans, 83 percent of whom now call global warming a " serious problem." Indoctrination is supposed to be a predicate for action commensurate with professions of seriousness.

For example, Democrats could demand that the president send the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate so they can embrace it. In 1997, the Senate voted95 to 0 in opposition to any agreement that would, like the protocol, require significant reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in America and some other developed nations but that would involve no "specific scheduled commitments" for 129 "developing" countries, including the second-, fourth-, 10th-, 11th-, 13th- and 15th-largest economies (China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Indonesia). Forty-two of the senators serving in 1997 are gone. Let's find out if the new senators disagree with the 1997 vote.

Do they also disagree with Bjorn Lomborg, author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist"? He says: Compliance with Kyoto would reduce global warming by an amount too small to measure. But the cost of compliance just to the United States would be higher than the cost of providing the entire world with clean drinking water and sanitation, which would prevent 2 million deaths (from diseases such as infant diarrhea) a year and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill each year.

Nature designed us as carnivores, but what does nature know about nature? Meat has been designated a menace. Among the 51 exhortations in Time magazine's " Global Warming Survival Guide" (April 9), No. 22 says a BMW is less responsible than a Big Mac for "climate change," that conveniently imprecise name for our peril. This is because the world meat industry produces 18 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, more than transportation produces. Nitrous oxide in manure (warming effect: 296 times greater than that of carbon) and methane from animal flatulence (23 times greater) mean that "a 16-oz. T-bone is like a Hummer on a plate."

Ben & Jerry's ice cream might be even more sinister: A gallon of it requires electricity-guzzling refrigeration and four gallons of milk produced by cows that simultaneously produce eight gallons of manure and flatulence with eight gallons of methane. The cows do this while consuming lots of grain and hay, which are cultivated by using tractor fuel, chemical fertilizers, herbicides and insecticides, and transported by fuel-consuming trains and trucks.

Newsweek says most food travels at least 1,200 miles to get to Americans' plates, so buying local food will save fuel. Do not order halibut in Omaha.

Speaking of Hummers, perhaps it is environmentally responsible to buy one and squash a Prius with it. The Prius hybrid is, of course, fuel-efficient. There are, however, environmental costs to mining and smelting (in Canada) 1,000 tons a year of zinc for the battery-powered second motor, and the shipping of the zinc 10,000 miles -- trailing a cloud of carbon dioxide -- to Wales for refining and then to China for turning it into the component that is then sent to a battery factory in Japan.

Opinions differ as to whether acid rain from the Canadian mining and smelting operation is killing vegetation that once absorbed carbon dioxide. But a report from CNW Marketing Research ("Dust to Dust: The Energy Cost of New Vehicles from Concept to Disposal") concludes that in "dollars per lifetime mile," a Prius (expected life: 109,000 miles) costs $3.25, compared with $1.95 for a Hummer H3 (expected life: 207,000 miles).

The CNW report states that a hybrid makes economic and environmental sense for a purchaser living in the Los Angeles basin, where fuel costs are high and smog is worrisome. But environmental costs of the hybrid are exported from the basin.

We are urged to "think globally and act locally," as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has done with proposals to reduce California's carbon dioxide emissions 25 percent by 2020. If California improbably achieves this, at a cost not yet computed, it will have reduced global greenhouse gas emissions 0.3 percent. The question is:

Suppose the costs over a decade of trying to achieve a local goal are significant. And suppose the positive impact on the globe's temperature is insignificant -- and much less than, say, the negative impact of one year's increase in the number of vehicles in one country (e.g., India). If so, are people who recommend such things thinking globally but not clearly?

[DanielDudley]

There would still be technical advancement, and presumably a path to new energy sources or technologys. Nobody could have predicted the signifigance of the development of the transistor, but we can see it clearly now.

I would also like to point out that when emmission controls for automobiles were mandated in the early seventies, everybody thought that it was a ruinous proposal that would permanently emasculate cars. If we look at the cars of today, we can see that the adoption of new technologys spurred the development of cars that are superior in power and efficiency.

BTW, if we had adopted an energy independance strategy in the 70s, as Carter had suggested, we might be in a totally different world today. Resisting change is a natural human response, but we have been resisting these developments for over thirty years. There will be an inevitable status quo is good response from the business sector, but if you want to make a hole nowadays, you can use a drill bit or you can use a laser. British Petroleum has decided that they are no longer in the oil business, but in the energy business instead. Exxon Mobil is still in the oil business.

I would like to point out that the Japanese are well ahead of everybody when it comes to hybrids. They are in the personal transportation business. I'm not a big fan of hybrids, but it is worth noting that when every car maker in the US said meeting emmissions standards was impossible, the Japanese already had clean cars to put on the market.

I think it is time for the US to become a world technology leader again, and stop trying to maintain it's king of the hill status as the reigning superpower. We have much more to gain by using our brains.

Interesting topic.

[Tervuren]

I used to race Electric RC cars. The fact is, you are adding an extra energy conversion(loss) whenever you use electricity. If we put as much effort into a workable variable ratio drivetrain as we did into "hybrids", you'd see a whole lot bigger improvement, as you could run an engine constantly at maximum efficiency. Gasoline motors are most efficient under a load, electrics are more efficient without the huge amounts of current. Hybrids using both lets you use whichever has the advantage, but you are losing energy converting to electricity, if instead, you use the gasoline motor at its full potential, you will be ahead.

I freaken' love the low end torque of an electric motor, I could slam out of corner so much better then the little revvy two strokes. Not to mention smoothness of power application, on a slick dirt track, I could stay in traction accelerating out of a corner, when other drivers where slipping a bit too much.

What people fail to see though, is that the electricity still has to be generated somewhere - ITS NOT ZERO EMMISSIONS! NOT ZERO FUEL! NOT ZERO ENERGY!

From my viewpoint, everything is either nuclear, geomthermal or solar energy. Our fossil fuels are a combination of the two. Plants took solar energy, and stored it as chemical energy, then when it was buried, it was converted into a more useable fuel source. Wind energy is linked to the sun as well.

Nuclear waste is nasty, our best bet is to use the great big nuclear reactor thats already spewing radiation all over space just a little over 8 light minutes away. In science fiction movies, it makes me laugh when they talk about polluting space with nuclear waste...I mean, whats the sun doing??? We jsut have a big enough protective layer in our atmosphere a lot of us don't realize just how much deadly radiation the sun is pumping out.

[M.D. Holloway]

Very interesting. I gotta think that there is a computer model that could run the true and total costs to produce. I'm working on cost of MRO for industrial applications. The early results are very surprising.

[jyl]

The Prius doesn't work the way some of you seem to think it does.

The car does most of its driving on the gas motor. Very little of the driving comes from the electricity stored in the battery, and not much of that is generated/converted by the gas motor.

Basically, the Prius is a light, aerodynamic car with a small gasoline motor (only 70hp) driving a very unusual transmission that is also coupled to an electric motor. It gets most of its fuel economy from the combination of light, aero, and small gas engine. It gets some more by shutting off the gas motor at every stop (no idling at traffic lights or in stop-n-go traffic).

If there was no electric motor, this would make for a very under-powered car with driveability problems (e.g. at green lights, lag while engine restarts). But the electric motor kicks in when accelerating, and when starting off the line, to make the car drive as if it had a larger motor.

The electric motor is powered from a relatively small 42v traction battery. The traction battery is charged either by braking (all braking short of a panic stop is done via regenerative braking, essentially using the electric motor as a generator) or from excess energy when the gas motor is running anyway to drive the car (e.g. on the freeway) or to reach normal operating temperature (e.g. cold start).

Only in very unusual cases will the gas engine run for the purpose of recharging the traction battery (have hardly ever seen this on my Prius).

So the inefficiency of kinetic to electric conversion is not really a problem, since the kinetic energy being used would otherwise be wasted.

And the car seldom drives wholly on the electric motor. When toddling around at <20 mph with very light throttle, then sometimes. But the traction battery will only allow a few miles range on electric-only.

[techweenie]

Cr@p. Typical George Will cr@p.

Yes, some guy up in Oregon suggested a Prius had a greater per-mile cost than a Hummer, but had to suggest that the GM-built and engineered H3 has a service life twice that of a Toyota flagship vehicle. This is beyond nonsense.

The rationalization used to shorten the Prius' service life is so transparently wrong that one has to question who is paying the bills at CNW.

The 'Ben and Jerry's' story is only part of the data. The whole 'cattle culture' story is massive and fairly disturbing. But George knows his audience would feel much more comfortable trashing Ben & Jerry's than a big ol' steak.

[techweenie]

This is instructive:

http://www.foet.org/books/beyond-beef.html

[jyl]

As for the CNW report, it should be read before being discussed, otherwise you can't discuss it intelligently.

It is a very ambitious attempt to calculate the cradle to grave energy costs of almost every current model car, truck and SUV. This includes energy costs of making the car, fueling it, maintaining it, and scrapping it. Then CNW divides this total calculated cost by the expected lifetime mileage of the car to get cradle-to-grave energy cost/mile.

The most glaring problem is that CNW assumes the Prius has an average lifetime mileage of 109K (over an average lifespan of 12 years) while the Hummer H2 has an average lifetime mileage of 220K miles (over an average lifespan of 22 years). So by using different denominators, CNW arrives at the attention-getting conclusion that a Prius costs $3.25/mile while a Hummer H2 costs $1.95/mile in energy.

Since neither Prius not H2 has been around more than a few years, CNW has no real basis for this assumption. Their logic is that most hybrids are used as secondary cars, driven on college campuses and retirement communities, and thus do very low mileage, and also that people will discard them frequently as new models are introduced, akin to consumer electronics. While luxury SUVs are assumed to be primary vehicles, handed down among family members, and kept running for two decades. I think this is bogus. The Priuses I see are being used as regular cars, commuting and so on. While I have a hard time thinking in 2029 there'll be many Hummer H2's driving around sucking up $15/gal gasoline.

The rest of the analysis has numerous other problems. For example, CNW assumes the Prius will require far more repairs than the Hummer, another silly assumption. Well, evidence so far is that Priuses have Toyota-like reliability, while the Hummer is a GM . . .

Anyway, read the paper yourself. It is ambitious but, I think, incompetent.

P.S. CNW also says that Range Rovers will have average 22 year lifespans, which really made me laugh. Is that why after 10 years a Rangie has lost >90% of its value?

[island_dude]

George will never fails to impress me with his complete lack of knowledge of science and technology. I am not sure exactly how he arrived at this mind blowing conclusion that produce the prius batteries is more environmentally negative that the Hummer. The hummer uses more of just about every raw material than the hybrid batteries included. Most of the steel used is nickel plated for corrosion protection. The hummer uses a lot more than the smaller car. He has no credibility on this topic. I am sick of the politicizing of these topics without making any honest attempt at really thinking about what is going on. This is happening across the political spectrum not just the ends.

[jyl]

Finally, it is stupid to blame the Prius for the environmental damage at the Canadian mine. This mine was once apparently an enviromental mess, but that's from over a century of past mining (from 1870) and the area has been undergoing extensive cleanup and reforestation for the past 3 decades, so I doubt that current mine operations are anywere near as polluting as the article implies. The Prius has only been made for a few years, and 1,000 tons/yr of zinc is only a small percentage of the mine's current output.

By the way, CNW is a marketing firm, which may explain why their analyis was incompetent . . .

[pwd72s]

Originally posted by jyl
Finally, it is stupid to blame the Prius for the environmental damage at the Canadian mine. This mine was once apparently an enviromental mess, but that's from over a century of past mining (from 1870) and the area has been undergoing extensive cleanup and reforestation for the past 3 decades, so I doubt that current mine operations are anywere near as polluting as the article implies. The Prius has only been made for a few years, and 1,000 tons/yr of zinc is only a small percentage of the mine's current output.

By the way, CNW is a marketing firm, which may explain why their analyis was incompetent . . .

John? Did you recently buy a Prius?

[on-ramp]

Originally posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts
Problem: car companies have little incentives to make cars that will last a long time.

-Wayne

Very true.. the same applies to manufacturers of refrigerators, ovens, dishwashers, stoves...etc..
"they don't build em like they used to"

[hytem]

The Will piece is full of baloney. I wish the Right would stop politicizing Global Warming. It's too important.

[john70t]

Most people travel less than 15 miles from home on a daily basis, and spend much of that idling and in stop-and go traffic.
Cold start-up and temporary WOT is when gasoline engine are least efficient.

So much for journalistic integrety.

[Rick Lee]

Originally posted by hytem
The Will piece is full of baloney. I wish the Right would stop politicizing Global Warming. It's too important.

Ha ha! Surely you jest. The right? Right, uh huh. The left is way above politics. LOL.

[Tervuren]

Much more efficient, is instead of an H3, getting an old 944. My old one was 215,000 miles on it when it got wrecked, otherwise it would of still been going. I don't get how some people buy a new car and trade it in every year, or even every couple months...

My mom getting a 944 to drive when the whole family wasn't going anywhere was our contribution to reducing emissions.

[island911]

Originally posted by Wayne at Pelican Parts
Problem: car companies have little incentives to make cars that will last a long time.

-Wayne

Yep. We have a culture that has little education on the concept of maintenance. Car design and constructions move closer and closer to a Dixiecup concept.

From what I've seen, those who have purchased hybrids are the typical trend buying, throw it away and buy the next trend-types. IMO, the used hybrid market is going to go the same way as the 928 market. I also think about all the laptops that have been discarded due to spent batteries. So who's going to buy a used hybrid that has worn suspension, brakes, worn cloth seats, glitchy power-management electronics . . . and need a few grand in new batteries?

Originally posted by hytem
.. I wish the Right would stop politicizing Global Warming. It's too important.

NO kidding . .. that movie that VP Cheney made .... why, oh why, does the right politicize so?





geeze, hytem, WTH are you thinking? . . .or smoking?

[CurtEgerer]

I just got around to reading Will's column - a satirical classic for the ages! Illustrating the absurdity of Global Warming with the movement's own schizophrenic theories as published in Times, Newsweek, et al. i.e. What's killing Mother Earth? Acid rain, meat production, vehicles, mining, or cow flatulence? They've all been cited as culprits by scientists.

My favorites:

"the media-entertainment-environmental complex"

"a 16-oz. T-bone is like a Hummer on a plate."

"climate change," that conveniently imprecise name for our peril."

"Do not order halibut in Omaha!"

I think I'm going to drive my wife's Hemi-powered SUV to a Japanese steakhouse tonight and have some Kobe steak flown in from Japan. Maybe a little Ben & Jerry's ice cream for dessert too