If you dig the whole “let’s save the world” approach to life and/or are interested in cars, here’s a read for you:
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/recorder/editorial/editorial_item.asp?NewsID=188
Some excerpts:
“The Prius costs an average of $3.25 per mile driven over a lifetime of 100,000 miles - the expected lifespan of the Hybrid.”
“The Hummer, on the other hand, costs a more fiscal $1.95 per mile to put on the road over an expected lifetime of 300,000 miles. That means the Hummer will last three times longer than a Prius and use less combined energy doing it”
“Building a Toyota Prius causes more environmental damage than a Hummer that is on the road for three times longer than a Prius. As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.”
While Demorro makes some good points, I have issues with his one-sided analysis, failing to mention anything about the manufacturing process of a Hummer, leaving the reader assuming that, while Prius’ are manufactured in a hell-on-earth, Hummers must be grown out of giant tulips in Willy Wonka’s latest Garden-in-a-Warehouse.
Demorro fails to say anything about CO2 emissions in the manufacturing process or the post-manufacturing use of the vehicle. His conclusions, so far as I gather, are based entirely on monetary units spent per mile, rather than Pollution Spewed per mile or gallon.
Clearly he makes some good points (if you go on to read about the international cargo shipping of parts, which no doubt occur for Hummers too), and it is necessary to approach a topic such as Green energy with a critical eye; however I feel he is doing a fairly rhetorical job of taking the wind out of ethical sails… Everybody go buy a Hummer!
Peace
