The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
#11
03-14-2007, 06:16 PM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
That has a lot less todo with the Prius being a hybrid than it has to do with a certain factors having very bad environmental controls.
#12
03-14-2007, 08:22 PM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
I sent this letter:
The author of this student newspaper piece replied via an e-mail and plans to do some fact checking. So I sent him a copy of Frank's e-mail with the graphs. I also volunteered that I'd over estimated the amount of nickel in a Prius battery and suggested he contact Toyota North America to get the facts and data. Sad to say but he'd assumed the "Daily Mail" article and the CNW Marketing reports had been fact checked.
It was a 'learning' experience for the kid and hopefully, he'll be a little more circumspect in the future.
Bob Wilson
Originally Posted by Bob_Wilson
> http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/edito...asp?NewsID=188
>
After checking with the editor, I understand they will review but may or may not elect to publish this rebuttal:
Dear Editor,
Chris Demorro's opinion piece, "Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage" suffers from a lack of fact checking. He claims ". . . their ultimate 'green car' is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America" copied from a flawed _Daily_ _Mail_ article without at least fact checking the environmental record of the Inco Sudbury Canadian plant, http://wwww.inco-sudbury-airquality.com/.
Frank Javor, Superintendent, Health and Environment, CVRD Inco Smelting Operations e-mailed their annual emissions data going back to 1974, 23 years before Toyota sold their first Prius. Since then, INCO has made a 90% reduction in SO(2) and INCO emissions continue to go down.
Chris failed to check the amount of nickel used in hybrid batteries, about 200 pounds per vehicle or 30 million pounds for 150,000 existing Prius versus the annual Canadian nickel output, over 380 million pounds. Nickel production is driven by the vastly larger market for stainless steel and other high temperature metals.
Failure to fact check is compounded when the flawed CNW Marketing report is cited while the "Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment", http://www.ilea.org/lcas/macleanlave1998.html, from Carnegie Mellon University, reports 73% of the energy used comes from operation, not manufacturing. Only CNW Marketing makes this false claim and compounds the error by using dollars instead of Joules, an energy unit. Those who have read the CNW Marketing report can confirm a large number of false claims including assignment of shorter vehicle lifetimes to hybrids, excessively development costs, false recycling claims, and a claim that hybrids are "a style.' This last lie suggests that if someone had a gas-only Camry and a hybrid Camry, they would drive the gas Camry even with $3/gal gas because the hybrid is "a style."
An opinion piece that states the opposite of the facts and data is deliberately misleading to the point of propaganda. Hybrids aren't for everyone but in this case, Chris failed to fact check and at best, his piece was misleading.
Robert J. Wilson
Sr. Network Engineer
>
After checking with the editor, I understand they will review but may or may not elect to publish this rebuttal:
Dear Editor,
Chris Demorro's opinion piece, "Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage" suffers from a lack of fact checking. He claims ". . . their ultimate 'green car' is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America" copied from a flawed _Daily_ _Mail_ article without at least fact checking the environmental record of the Inco Sudbury Canadian plant, http://wwww.inco-sudbury-airquality.com/.
Frank Javor, Superintendent, Health and Environment, CVRD Inco Smelting Operations e-mailed their annual emissions data going back to 1974, 23 years before Toyota sold their first Prius. Since then, INCO has made a 90% reduction in SO(2) and INCO emissions continue to go down.
Chris failed to check the amount of nickel used in hybrid batteries, about 200 pounds per vehicle or 30 million pounds for 150,000 existing Prius versus the annual Canadian nickel output, over 380 million pounds. Nickel production is driven by the vastly larger market for stainless steel and other high temperature metals.
Failure to fact check is compounded when the flawed CNW Marketing report is cited while the "Institute for Lifecycle Environmental Assessment", http://www.ilea.org/lcas/macleanlave1998.html, from Carnegie Mellon University, reports 73% of the energy used comes from operation, not manufacturing. Only CNW Marketing makes this false claim and compounds the error by using dollars instead of Joules, an energy unit. Those who have read the CNW Marketing report can confirm a large number of false claims including assignment of shorter vehicle lifetimes to hybrids, excessively development costs, false recycling claims, and a claim that hybrids are "a style.' This last lie suggests that if someone had a gas-only Camry and a hybrid Camry, they would drive the gas Camry even with $3/gal gas because the hybrid is "a style."
An opinion piece that states the opposite of the facts and data is deliberately misleading to the point of propaganda. Hybrids aren't for everyone but in this case, Chris failed to fact check and at best, his piece was misleading.
Robert J. Wilson
Sr. Network Engineer
It was a 'learning' experience for the kid and hopefully, he'll be a little more circumspect in the future.
Bob Wilson
#14
03-14-2007, 10:03 PM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
Owning a hybrid is not a requirement to me a member of these boards nor is it a requirement to have an opinion. If our hybrids are in fact dirty I for one would like to know this. If someone has proof one way or the other I'd like to read about it.
#15
03-14-2007, 11:04 PM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
That article uses a bunch of misguided numbers and statistics in a horrible manner. For a journalist to then regurgitate them as fact is absurd. Even a little bit of reading, let alone some research into the figures would show the study to be ridiculous. The concept of the article is very good. The fact-gathering and assumptions used are very poor, quite unscientific, and in some case just pure fabrications. The bias is VERY clear, and is unsupported.
And yes, this is OLD news, and has been chopped to bits before. Do a search, you'll likely find plenty of posts. That's all there is to say about this post from me.
And yes, this is OLD news, and has been chopped to bits before. Do a search, you'll likely find plenty of posts. That's all there is to say about this post from me.
#16
03-14-2007, 11:15 PM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
If someone can logically demonstrate that a part of the logic is wrong behind that article, then it would invalidate that article, but until then, the information they present seems plausible and it is extremely important to discern whether or not it is correct; how people feel about the party that presented it does not invalidate the information they put forward.
"Studies are reported on two small lakes at Sudbury, Ontario located close to a nickel-copper smelter which closed in 1972".
25 years later, Toyota Prius was introduced in Japan in 1997.
Ken@Japan
Last edited by ken1784; 03-14-2007 at 11:41 PM.
#17
03-14-2007, 11:40 PM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/k_forum/tenji/pdf/pgr_e.pdf
Maybe, you'll be required Japanese font to view the PDF file.
Ken@Japan
#18
03-15-2007, 02:14 AM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
Thank you Ken.
The Japanese font file was about 10 MB so folks with slower dial-up access may want to 'take a nap' while it downloads. Although written for a lay audience, this is a nice write-up. I didn't realize there was a life-cycle standard, ISO14040. Somehow, I suspect CNW Marketing didn't comply with this standard when they wrote their report.
CNW Marketing may have 'found' one or more LCA report(s) and used them without attribution for their source material. The ethical problems associated with this includes plagiarism and theft of company proprietary information. A hypothetical, obscuring the source also 'mangles' the data making understanding of what is going on impossible.
The only part of the six page Japanese report that bothers me is the comparison of identical weight vehicles with different sized engines. Upon reflection, I see why, the mass of the vehicle has to be held constant to normalize the manufacturing numbers. However, we have both a 1,500 cc Prius and a 1,500 cc Echo, normalized by displacement. The Echo weights ~2,100 lbs versus the Prius ~2,700 lbs. Yet the Echo 32 MPG is considerably worse than the Prius 52 MPG.
My quick reading of ISO 14040 suggests a potential boundary issue (i.e., the scope) that might reduce the gasoline operational costs to just the Mj energy content. Having grown up in Oklahoma and driven past and lived near refineries, I am well aware of the emissions to make a gallon of gasoline. Using just the energy content of gasoline would not include the associated gasoline emissions and energy production impact between the two vehicles.
Still, this is a nice enough, non-technical report and one I'll add to my "Prius Reports" folder. But I would prefer reading a more detailed version.
Bob Wilson
Prius Green Report (LCA or Life Cycle Assessment)
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/k_forum/tenji/pdf/pgr_e.pdf
Maybe, you'll be required Japanese font to view the PDF file.
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/k_forum/tenji/pdf/pgr_e.pdf
Maybe, you'll be required Japanese font to view the PDF file.
CNW Marketing may have 'found' one or more LCA report(s) and used them without attribution for their source material. The ethical problems associated with this includes plagiarism and theft of company proprietary information. A hypothetical, obscuring the source also 'mangles' the data making understanding of what is going on impossible.
The only part of the six page Japanese report that bothers me is the comparison of identical weight vehicles with different sized engines. Upon reflection, I see why, the mass of the vehicle has to be held constant to normalize the manufacturing numbers. However, we have both a 1,500 cc Prius and a 1,500 cc Echo, normalized by displacement. The Echo weights ~2,100 lbs versus the Prius ~2,700 lbs. Yet the Echo 32 MPG is considerably worse than the Prius 52 MPG.
My quick reading of ISO 14040 suggests a potential boundary issue (i.e., the scope) that might reduce the gasoline operational costs to just the Mj energy content. Having grown up in Oklahoma and driven past and lived near refineries, I am well aware of the emissions to make a gallon of gasoline. Using just the energy content of gasoline would not include the associated gasoline emissions and energy production impact between the two vehicles.
Still, this is a nice enough, non-technical report and one I'll add to my "Prius Reports" folder. But I would prefer reading a more detailed version.
Bob Wilson
#19
03-15-2007, 04:52 AM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
This has appeared at least three times on PriusChat, twice here, no telling how many times elsewhere. The factory has been in production for a century - it's customers have little control over what they do. This includes the 0.4% share Toyota is using for their entire line of vehicles.
The Spinella estimate of a domestic non-hybrid lasting 300,000 miles is....optimistic for any vehicle. Then to say hybrids will last only 100,000 miles is equally speculative. Consumer Reports has a reputation of being far more dispassionate than CNW Research. They have consistently noted Japanese makes hold up better than domestics.
Shining Arcanine, it's up to the plantiff/prosecution to provide the proof, esp. since this has been tried and dismissed several times.
Find some factual links.
The Spinella estimate of a domestic non-hybrid lasting 300,000 miles is....optimistic for any vehicle. Then to say hybrids will last only 100,000 miles is equally speculative. Consumer Reports has a reputation of being far more dispassionate than CNW Research. They have consistently noted Japanese makes hold up better than domestics.
Shining Arcanine, it's up to the plantiff/prosecution to provide the proof, esp. since this has been tried and dismissed several times.
Find some factual links.
The longest lifespan of any vehicle I've ever driven was a Ford Ranger XLT: 225,000 (or thereabouts. Maybe it was 250k). The shortest three are in a three-way tie for last place: Pontiac Fiero, Grand AM and Grand Prix. None of them made it past 70k.
That being said, my HCH now has 115k miles on it and still ekes out 42 MPG. It's never needed a catastrophic repair of any kind, and has basically just had the scheduled maint and a couple sets of tires.
#20
03-15-2007, 05:32 AM
Re: The Toyota Prius is bad for the environment
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p41q4570n392661q/
"Studies are reported on two small lakes at Sudbury, Ontario located close to a nickel-copper smelter which closed in 1972".
25 years later, Toyota Prius was introduced in Japan in 1997.
Ken@Japan
"Studies are reported on two small lakes at Sudbury, Ontario located close to a nickel-copper smelter which closed in 1972".
25 years later, Toyota Prius was introduced in Japan in 1997.
Ken@Japan
