I seriously mistrust the facts, analysis and agenda of the author of this article. I would really like the engineers on the list (you know who you are!) to pick this to pieces.

http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/edito...asp?NewsID=188

 

www.snopes.com seriously needs to dismiss:
This has been circulated far more than it deserves. According to PriusChat, it even made it's way to the Rush Limbaugh show as "fact".

 

Hi,
I'm just tracking the ripples:

https://www.greenhybrid.com/discuss/...ad.php?t=12664

My reply to the kid:

--- my reply ---

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
9011 Randall Road
Huntsville, AL 35802

--- my reply ---

 

Pictures like this are disturbing to anyone, I would hope, I commend those that are trying to bring these problems to the surface.

"Ore is smelted on site at Norilsk. The smelting is directly responsible for severe pollution, including acid raid and smog. By some estimates, 1 percent of the entire global emission of sulfur dioxide originates here. heavy metal pollution in the area is so severe that the soil itself has platinum and palladium content which is feasible to mine."

MMC Norilsk Nickel. (2007, March 9). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:02, March 19, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMC_Norilsk_Nickel
"Today, Norilsk may be famous for its mineral wealth but it has also achieved considerable notoriety for having the worst air pollution of any town in Russia." www.arcticphoto.co.uk/stories/norilsk/norilsk.htm

I have a feeling that the production of heavy metals is not environmentally friendly all the time.

• Chemistry: (Fe, Ni)9S8, Iron Nickel Sulfide.
• Class: Sulfides
• Group: Pentlandite
• Uses: As the principle ore of nickel, a minor ore of iron and as mineral specimens. Specimens, http://www.galleries.com/minerals/su...d/pentland.htm

I really don't believe Toyota should be blamed for using a battery that is best for the Prius design. I personally place blame on the manufacture and smelting processes witch need to clean up there act. Toyota is doing there part and the rest of the world needs to do theirs.

"Other major deposits of nickel are found in New Caledonia, Australia, Cuba, and Indonesia." "Riddle, Oregon, where several square miles of nickel-bearing garnierite surface deposits are located." “Nickel is used in many industrial and consumer products, including stainless steel, magnets, coinage, and special alloys. It is also used for plating and as a green tint in glass.” taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel.

Kevin Becker.

 

Here a a small article with info that dates back to 1970 when the picture above was "probably" taken, as you can see the company was always within regulations and is now well below the Canadian requirments. I can't find any recent picture of the area.

http://www.pollutionissues.com/Re-Sy/Smelting.html

here is the same graph from the above site
let alone that "The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles".

Kevin Becker

 

Imagine what Gobbels could do if he had the Internet.

 

This whole Prius-bashing story follows Hitler's "big lie" principle:

Hitler wrote in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf (James Murphy translation, page 134):

All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.

from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Lie

Harry

 

These stories have been here, other forums several times - more than once daily at PriusChat.

I had the radio on at bedtime and Lars Larson was ranting, explicitly pounding on the "factual" Sudbury Nickel mine article and explicitly named fellow Oregonean Art Spinella and his "Dust to Dust" story.

That does it - I went to www.snopes.com and joined their forum. When I have time to get all my links organized, I'm going to post there and get them to post this as an urban myth. Some will continue to cite Dust to Dust, but many will think twice if it's listed as an urban myth.

 

Thanks! I'll add this to the 'spin machine' thread.

Bob Wilson

 

Bob,

Lars Larson had a Global Warming broadcast - if you don't mind diatribe elevating your blood pressure, download the March 21 Podcast at http://www.larslarson.com/Commentary/RightOnTheLeftCoast/default.aspx