Anyone see that article about the factory in Canada I think it was that is involved in the production of batteries for the Prius a few days ago?
I havent seen a post on here about it although maybe I missed it.
I couldnt believe the pollution that place had caused and I think any Prius driver would want to be thinking twice about buying on on an enviromental basis! I couldnt believe the picture, the land looked almost purple and very surreal.
Just goes to show, this concentration on CO2 emissions is nowhere near the real picture on pollution.
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Yes I saw the article (link below). I can't understand why owners of the Prius aren't taxed as heavily as, say, me and my diesel which acheives around 53mpg - a Prius, even after the pollution shown in the article, struggles to realisticly acheive 48mpg!
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sorry link here:
www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news....0
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As I have pointed out on here on numerous occasions there is a lot of hypocrisy surounding the Prius, for instance the CA residing celebs who drive their Prius's from Hollywood to LAX then get in their Lears or Gulfstreams to fly to Canne for the film festival!
The fact is that a Prius is no more efficient in use than say a 1.6 Focus TDCi or a Toyota's own Yaris D4D though has a carbon footprint in manufacture some 50% greater - yet alone the increased disposal costs.
Futhermore Road and Track magazine in the US did a coast-to-coast economy run with a Lexus RX400h hybrid and a diesel Mercedes-Benz ML-Class. The Merc used less fuel!
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That picture is horrific.
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That picture is horrific.
Is it pollution or has someone been hugging that tree too much?
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Is it pollution or has someone been hugging that tree too much?
Too much love will kill you :o(
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I have always said that these hybrid cars are nonesense, what people seem to forget is the shear amount of extra energy and raw materials it takes to make them, and even after all that, they aren't particularly Co2 efficient compared with many small diesel cars.
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I've used the argument myself before about these hybrid cars actually being more polluting over their lifetime than a normal car. To play Devil's Advocate for a moment though: The somewhat lacking 'ecologically friendly' vehicles we have at the moment need to exist at some point in order for the technology to evolve into something which is actually worthwhile.
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Mind you, I don't think that argument would appease me if I lived anywhere near that factory.
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It's the same with solar panels (photovoltaic), they require more resources to make than they save.
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It's the same with solar panels (photovoltaic), they require more resources to make than they save.
And concrete (which they make wind turbine columns out of) is said to be responsible for 10% of global man made CO2 emissions
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You are all making a BIG mistake. You are confusing environmental debates with FACTS>
In most cases, the two are totally diverge.
The Facts are unimportant, it's the propaganda that counts.. (I think a Mr Goebels started it all) sp?
madf
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NowWheels would have loved this thread.
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NowWheels would have loved this thread.
Where'd she go?
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>> NowWheels would have loved this thread. Where'd she go?
I think she departed soon after being told a couple of years ago in no uncertain terms by one of the mods (DD?) that she was unwelcome...
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I think she departed soon after being told a couple of years ago in no uncertain terms by one of the mods (DD?) that she was unwelcome...
Still about a few weeks ago actually, but less often than she used to be.
Quite amusing actually, but rather anti-car for one of us....
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>> Still about a few weeks ago actually, but less often than she used to be.
Oh, good to know. I like hearing an alternative view as long as it's well reasoned.
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I think she departed soon after being told a couple of years ago in no uncertain terms by one of the mods (DD?) that she was unwelcome...
I think you're confusing me for another moderator that used to be here (well, he is still here, but without the edit button anymore).
Anyway, NW is still around:- she posted something this morning.
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?v=e&t=46...9
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No mention of nickel used in stainless steel (close all restaurants), coinage (paper money only allowed), green-tinted glass, ni-cd & ni-mh batteries (get rid of ipods, digital cameras, radios, etc.), etc., etc......zzzzzzzz
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No mention of nickel used in stainless steel (close all restaurants), coinage (paper money only allowed), green-tinted glass, ni-cd & ni-mh batteries (get rid of ipods, digital cameras, radios, etc.), etc., etc......
None of which are claimed to be super eco friendly...
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That photograph is just a photograph. You can make almost anything look squalid if you position the camera correctly.
Nickel is being produced by that factory anyway. Toyota and cars are not the only end users of nickel.
While it may well be true that the lifetime pollution bill for a Prius is high and that a small diesel will be cheaper and less polluting to run, the whole story doesn't amount to a hill of beans. It's probably just Cameron knocking by the DM which would probably prefer someone uglier, nastier and more backward.
Don't give it a second thought.
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Th article in the link stated "Once the nickel is smelted it is sent 10,000 miles on a container ship journey which in itself consumes vast quantities of fuel and energy. "
Given that journey by ship is proably the most energy efficient way of moving heavy articles, the standard of journalism is up to the fine standards set by the DM and Dr Goebels. And I doubt if there are many nickel mines wherever the Prius batteries are built so no choice in that nickel has to be transported somehow...
I have no dounbt some of it is true. How much and which bit is difficult to judge given the gross inaccuracy - indeed outrightly misleading - carp above.
And I would add imo that anyone who seriously believes anything written by the DM has suspended all their critical faculties... :-)
madf
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We were doing quite well untill the anti Mail lot started, madf you are well named.
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We were doing quite well untill the anti Mail lot started, madf you are well named.
Down with the anti Mail lot
That puling lefty pale lot
Who should be in the army or in jail
For dissing Josef Goebbels
For saying he had noebbels
And for hating or for loving common rail:
Stand up! Stand up! Defend the Daily Mail!
Ludf
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Lud, you are a poet, did you know it?
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Why do so many people only consider the mpg of a vahicle, not the total energy content over the construction and life of the vehicle. The Pruis is very poor on energy consumed in construction, let alone at the end of life - but only reasonable during use if in cities or below 30mph.
The average life of a car is now quoted at eight and a half years (including for accident right offs), whereas many 4x4's have a life of at least double that due to their stronger construction. This is why the Jeep was rated recently in the USA as the most energy efficient vehicle.
This does not mean I want a 4x4, but too many car drivers choose cars due to their looks rather than for their longlevity. In the UK the new market is very heavily dominated by the business user and the associated tax breaks and fuel costs.
Road taxes are now based upon emissions only, with no regard to the total energy concept, so no wonder we find images of environmental pollution hard to take in. What the eye never sees, so no one worries about.
The images of the landscape surrounding the nikle plant are shocking, but I doubt they are as bad as some parts of the developing world. What we in the UK would consider to be an environmental disaster would only rate as insignificate in these countries due to their need for cash to build their economy. Large multi-national firms move here to be able to make items for lower cost, lower selling price and with greater profits due to the lower environmental controls.
Until all countries can apply similar environmental regulations, I doubt if we will stop seeing large scale industrial polution. Some people will be prepared to pay slightly more if the good originate from a environmentally friendly factory, but the vast majority do not care enough.
--
Roger
I read frequently, but only post when I have something useful to say.
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Oh dear, the confusion between local pollution and carbon footprint. And then the nonsense.
Red Ken hates diesels and 4x4s compared to electric cars not unreasonably. The former produce pollution in the middle of an ugly filthy city. The latter put their CO2 into the air well outside the city - and with luck they turn U238 into Pu239.
Wind turbines prima facie are capable of producing more energy over their lifetime than they require in their construction. HOWEVER, much of the energy they produce is not used... and they are useless at the times when most energy is required:
1. When it is hot and still (=no wind = not working!) in the summer, and aircon is required.
2. When it is cold and still in the winter, and heating is required.
3. When it is windy and unpleasant in the winter (= too windy = not operating for fear of damage) so electricity useage is at a high.
Much of our nation's energy is produced by generating plants that broadly speaking have to run full time. That's why electricity is cheap at night - they have to continue generating it. There is a limited number of gas stations that can be more instant; and then there's pump storage - Dinorwig - which is instant.
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That is why no one solution will suffice, i.e solar when it is sunny and still in the summer, and aircon is required and wind when it is cold and windy in the winter, and heating is required. Cold and still is the only problem so pump storage hydro comes into play.
Back on track, Red Ken and Arnie's hybrid friendly policies are nymbyisms and not at all environmental on a national yet alone global level.
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>Cold and still is the only problem so pump storage hydro comes into play.
No. Not even remotely. (Even ignoring the fact that windy is a bigger problem than still, as the turbines have to be stopped in high winds.) Dinorwig is not about large-scale, long-term storage. If a high pressure sits over Britain in January, there might be three weeks without wind, but with a hard frost. Dinorwig will provide five minutes of the missing electricity.
Quotation from www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hills/cc/book/ch13%20sc...m as it's put so much better than I could.
Can intermittency and the need for spinning reserve be overcome by electricity storage?
No - there is effectively no such thing. A pump-storage facility such as Dinorwig is intended to cover very short surges in demand (the 2,000 MW Coronation Street kettle-peak!). Though it can generate 1,250 MW it can only do so for a short time - it is not suitable for large-scale electricity storage. Dinorwig and Ffestiniog are thus needed for surge control and there are in any case few, if any, sites where additional pump storage could be built. Such storage is very expensive to provide and the energy cost of pumping, enormous. Suggestions that hydrogen generation, storage and regenerative fuel cell technology could bridge this energy storage gap are also economically out of the question, and contrary to thermodynamic common sense.
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On the basis that wind turbines are situated where it is likely to be consistently windy and solar panels where it is most likely to be consistently sunny then both will produce some power even in meteologically unfavourable conditions, pump storage hydro will help to fill the troughs though I agree is not the complete answer.
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>>On the basis that wind turbines are situated where it is likely to be consistently windy
The middle (or rather, presumably, the edge) of the red spot on Jupiter is the only place I can think of. There's certainly nowhere in the British Isles that falls into that category.
The big problem is the capacity for failure. In order to cope with peak demand, Britain requires to be able to generate about a quarter more electricity than what is being used. Just like (simile stolen from link above) a car having to be able to do 100mph in order to have the oomph to overtake when doing 60mph. We do this by running power stations at less than full capacity - below full efficiency. Bear in mind that to bring a coal fired power station up to speed from cold will take an entire day. Wind is such a fickle 'gift' that every kW that is generated by wind requires us to have a kW of spare capacity in a conventional station - which is therefore running below full efficiency.
Wind generation makes not an iota of difference to Britain's carbon footprint, in fact if anything it probably widens it.
And the most desolate, beautiful spots in our nation have been difigured by windmills. I cannot imagine what our children or granchildren will be saying 50 years hence about our desecration of Britain's wildest spots by wind farms. It will make the widespread use of asbestos, or inner city smog as a result of coal burning seem like a teddy bears' picnic. At least those are reversible; peat takes thousands of years to grow, and reinforced concrete never disappears.
Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear.
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At the Joint European Torus experimental fusion reactor in Oxfordshire there's a huge concrete flywheel, can't remember what it weighs but plenty, 150 tons or something. It has a vertical axis and you can stand on it, like a very big turntable. Below it there's a device which I imagine is like a giant Prius electric motor, a reversible thing that can become a generator.
To get the sort of massive current the fusion device needs to work for a couple of hundredths of a second, not only is the thing rigged up to the national grid but the flywheel is powered up beforehand. It doesn't turn all that fast, 50 or 60 rpm (I think), but when they reverse the motor it too feeds in huge amounts of electricity. The place (at Culham) is absolutely amazing, like something out of Dan Dare. Cost plenty, but it's only an experiment. I think they're working on a bigger one somewhere in France now. That too will only be an experiment.
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At the Joint European Torus experimental fusion reactor in Oxfordshire there's a huge concrete flywheel, can't remember what it weighs but plenty, 150 tons or something.
775 tons apparantly. www.jet.efda.org/pages/focus/004power/index.html
I think they're working on a bigger one somewhere in France now.
ITER, I believe.
But now back to motoring.
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Thanks DD. Went there in early 80s and wrote a piece in French about it, but life wipes the slate fairly clean fairly quickly if it's just work. Only mentioned it because someone was talking about power storage. What better than a huge spinning lump of concrete witha Prius motor attached!
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If the paper really cared about the environment it would do us all favour and stop printing it's , simplistic, unbalanced, sensationalist daily drivel.
The needlessly wasted trees cut down for this newspaper, fuel for manufacture and distribution and then dumped in a landfill in some nice part of the countryside.
As if the paper really cares about our environment and hasn't published some sensational half reasoned article to boost circulation.
It easy to be critical of people's fallible efforts to do there good bit but at least the Prius is making an effort.
A few facts for thought I get 58mpg on my daily commute in to London with out any real effort on my part. My diesel struggles to get 35 mpg. And yes I have a big diesel car, and it's not fair to compare the two, but neither is it fair to compare a Prius which has the interior space of an Avensis with a frugal Yaris diesel or any other diesel supermini. The Prius has near the same interior space as my big diesel. But it's not just about fuel economy, when I'm stuck in congestion my engine is switched off and isn't pumping out toxic diesel particles that have been proven to give little Johnny lung disease. The factory doesn't solely exists just to produce Nickel for the Prius, so let's hope the paper reports on the other products we consume that use nickel. I actually applaud Ken Livingstone, despite his faults and personnaly dislike for him for dealing with the Chelesea tractor and high performance sports car, and rewarding low CO2 producing cars (not just hybrids but frugal city cars will be rewarded when the £25 tarrif comes in).
The article itself says that most of the damage to the area surrounding the factor happened well before Toyota started producing the Prius. So a desolate scene, doesn't equal evil Prius. A picture doesn't always tell the truth.
But I haven't a Prius just for environmental reasons. I bought it because it's actually a really great for town, quiet (far quieter than my diesel), comfortable, well put together, and well priced when you compare it to diesel automatic hatchback. I looked at diesel automatic Golf and it was far more expensive than the Prius.
So yes, Prius's still screw the enviornment but at least it's an attemp to do something and a good effort in the right direction.
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That Daily Mail article is drivel. I actually drove past that Nickel plant in Sudbury back in September 1984. I was pretty aghast then at the mess around there. Big pools of murky looking water. I think the plant has been running for several decades. Quite how the DM link this with the Prius is quite beyond me - its a nebulous link at best and I can only assume its part of an 'anti electric vehicle' stance that the paper has adopted for some reason.
I suspect that only a very tiny fraction of the output of that factory goes toward the production of Prius batteries. Vastly more will go into the production of NiMH batteries for camcorders, cellphones, and all the other battery powered equipment that we use, not to mention the vast quantity of Ni used in metallurgy. Most of these other batteries will be disposed on in non-environmentally-friendly ways, whereas I am pretty sure that most Prius batteries will find their way back to the dealers who recycle and use the nickel to make replacement batteries (nickel is fairly easy to recover from batteries).
The Prius is not a car I am keen on, but what we are seeing are the first attempts at commercial hybrid cars and I think Toyota etc are to be commended for carrying out what is at this stage a 'commercial experiment' with electric power.
Incidentally, the comment above about Jeep 4x4's being 'environmentally friendly' was clearly written either by someone promoting Chrysler products or who knows nothing about Chrysler 4x4's. They are pigs to work on, shoddily made and the parts cost a fortune (£300 for a wheel bearing). Furthermore the dealers in the UK don't supply parts for vehicles older than 5 years after production finished - consequently keeping an older Chrysler on the road is rarely an economic proposition.
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Quite, Aprilia.
300 quid for a wheel bearing! Got diamond rollers or balls, has it?
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