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There’s been a lot of attention over the last few years on energy consumption. Energy costs are high which impacts our every day lives, particularly in the form of transportation fuel costs, so we consumers try to find ways to save money and the environment. The product manufacturers are responding, providing less wasteful ‘green’ products. Our cars use less gas, we now have ultra-low sulphur diesel, and hybrids on the road.

But what is this energy consciousness costing? Is the planet really better off? Do we have more money left in our pockets at the end of the day?

Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage
By Chris Demorro
Staff Writer

The Toyota Prius has become the flagship car for those in our society so environmentally conscious that they are willing to spend a premium to show the world how much they care. Unfortunately for them, their ultimate ‘green car’ is the source of some of the worst pollution in North America; it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer.

Before we delve into the seedy underworld of hybrids, you must first understand how a hybrid works. For this, we will use the most popular hybrid on the market, the Toyota Prius.

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-liter gas engine found in most cars today and a battery- powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and a whooping 295ft/lbs of torque, below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive system, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. As any physics major can tell you, it takes more energy to get an object moving than to keep it moving. The battery is recharged through the braking system, as well as when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere north of 30mph. It seems like a great energy efficient and environmentally sound car, right?

You would be right if you went by the old government EPA estimates, which netted the Prius an incredible 60 miles per gallon in the city and 51 miles per gallon on the highway. Unfortunately for Toyota, the government realized how unrealistic their EPA tests were, which consisted of highway speeds limited to 55mph and acceleration of only 3.3 mph per second. The new tests which affect all 2008 models give a much more realistic rating with highway speeds of 80mph and acceleration of 8mph per second. This has dropped the Prius’s EPA down by 25 percent to an average of 45mpg. This now puts the Toyota within spitting distance of cars like the Chevy Aveo, which costs less then half what the Prius costs.

However, if that was the only issue with the Prius, I wouldn’t be writing this article. It gets much worse.

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.

The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare.

“The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with Mail, a British-based newspaper.

All of this would be bad enough in and of itself; however, the journey to make a hybrid doesn’t end there. The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. Are these not sounding less and less like environmentally sound cars and more like a farce?

Wait, I haven’t even got to the best part yet.

When you pool together all the combined energy it takes to drive and build a Toyota Prius, the flagship car of energy fanatics, it takes almost 50 percent more energy than a Hummer – the Prius’s arch nemesis.

Through a study by CNW Marketing called “Dust to Dust,” the total combined energy is taken from all the electrical, fuel, transportation, materials (metal, plastic, etc) and hundreds of other factors over the expected lifetime of a vehicle. 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.

So, if you are really an environmentalist – ditch the Prius. Instead, buy one of the most economical cars available – a Toyota Scion xB. The Scion only costs a paltry $0.48 per mile to put on the road. If you are still obsessed over gas mileage – buy a Chevy Aveo and fix that lead foot.

One last fun fact for you: it takes five years to offset the premium price of a Prius. Meaning, you have to wait 60 months to save any money over a non-hybrid car because of lower gas expenses.

So what’s the solution? Well, many of us have heard of hydrogen cars, fueled by the hydrogen fuel cell, but the technology to produce hydrogen without using fossil fuels and without damaging the environment is still a little ways off. Someday yes, this will be the solution. But in the interim, what can we do?

Electric cars are a farce. Here we’re simply charging the batteries with electricity, which is by and large supplied by coal fired plants. So you’re essentially driving a coal fueled vehicle, and coal fired electrical plants are the worst offenders of environmental pollution. Perhaps if we got our heads out of our asses and got back on track with nuclear power, this would be a viable long term or permanent option, but not until nearly all our electrical use was supplied by nuclear.

Diesel is a wonderful long term, or perhaps permanent solution. This is a very well established technology which has it’s roots in alternative energy. The diesel engine was originally designed to run on peanut oil. Today’s modern ultra-low sulphur diesel fuel is much cleaner than just a few years ago, and bio fuels made from animal and plant fats and oils are environmentally low impact and renewable.

While compressed natural gas (cng) and liquid petroleum gas (lpg) are fossil fuels and can never be part of a permanent solution to our energy problems, they must be considered as part of a temporary solution. Both cng and lpg are very clean burning, with very low pollutants. This means we can fuel our current technology without completely altering our infrastructure, technology base, or lifestyles. It’s also something we can do now, and will help our country become less dependent on foreign oil, since we produce an abundance here. The best part, Fuelmaker makes a line of home refueling appliances that connect to your home natural gas lines. You simply hook up the hose and flip on the pump at night, and your vehicle is fueled up in the morning. No more going to the gas station, and no more wasting time.