Are you Green?, HA! Options

[turboman808]

I am very green. I pee over the balcony to save water. You would think my neighbors below would appreciate this gesture for their kids future but they don't

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[EdwardBlume]

I am very green. I pee over the balcony to save water. You would think my neighbors below would appreciate this gesture for their kids future but they don't

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[Lou W]

Not sure if this is true but I have run into it a couple of times from different reports and different angles but they all essentially say the same;

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 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 doesnt 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 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.

I wonder whats gonna happen when these batteries in these cars when need to be replaced and the owners can't afford them? I also wonder who will take the old batteries?

[byndbad914]

In reference to the Hummer being cleaner than a Prius start to finish, Top Gear made a similar statement about a study that said driving a Range Rover SUV was better for the environment overall. May have been an extension of the same study tho'.

Anybody that owns a Prius is a fricken moron. Hopefully that ends that (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) We would be much better off to have turbo diesels with particulate cats and use the already existing ULS diesel. Get 50mpg in a larger, nicer AWD car like a Subaru Outback than that lame-ass Prius and after we move to nuclear energy (which, if ever even possible, will take this country probably 50yrs v. the 30 yrs hoped for... keep in mind 30yrs!! if we start tomorrow and get on a real schedule to better energy generation) consider electric cars that plug into the wall.

Just like to take a minute to thank all the stupid, stupid, clueless f'ers that are buying electric cars right now or in the near future. Energy is already becoming an issue with the influx of people (population growth in large cities like LA for example) and they are talking rolling brown-outs within just a couple of years in those large cities, and now idiot fuchs want to plug their car in while they are at it. And burn coal BTW to get the electricity (50% of US electricity is produced from coal).

Problem is that Americans need a cause. The tool that owns that jackass smart car probably jerks off to Al Gore movies while both attesting we should free Tibet one day and the next protest the current war.... so just exactly how should we free Tibet? Oh yeah, aren't people in Ethopia still starving? Remember the big hullabaloo over that back in the late 80s, early 90s. Then it was South Africa. Then it is Rwanda. After a few years the next bandwagon comes along. This one just hasn't seemed to die out yet, sadly because there is truly a possibility we need to be greener but how we do it is absolute bandwagon/sheep herding.

BTW, Mars is also experiencing global warming right now... must be all the pickup trucks and fossil fuels. Stupid Martians, we better launch some Priuses over there (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

Am I against being green? HELL NO, as long as it is truly moving towards green. I would love to have a 50mpg turbo diesel suby. Not a VW, those things are junk after about 60K miles when all the handles start falling off of them, etc. I am actually considering the Jetta for my fiancee but hate VW and would prefer an AWD option for her here in CO. If the price of solar roof stuff ever comes within reason I am all over that too, tho' with the threat of rolling brown outs, having a solar setup with on-site battery backup may be nearly a requirement (back to batts again!).

[naro914]

Don't hold back, please tell us how you really feel, byndbad914. It's not good to keep it all inside... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[EdwardBlume]

Amen.

Thankfully Obama and the dems will save us. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/lol-2.gif) with a grassroots campaign to revitalize America (IMG:style_emoticons/default/av-943.gif) without new taxes (IMG:style_emoticons/default/bye1.gif) and fix all those bad things the evil dictator Bush did (IMG:style_emoticons/default/poke.gif) so we can become happy people again.. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/w00t.gif)

Seriously though.. you notice that the news doesn't call it "global warming" anymore? Its now called "climate change". You don't want to lose the hysteria when the earth starts cooling off again.

[byndbad914]

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yeah, this stuff gets me a bit fired up because it is so much blind leading the blind. There is a not-so-simple but easily defined path to being truly green within the next 30-50yrs but shitheads like Al Gore and that under-educated Leo DiCaprio have everyone believing we have to do it in 10yrs... so everyone works into a frenzy and runs out and buys into shitbox hybrids that get maybe 40mpg if you just drive 'em v. hyper-mileage pussy footing (I do have to get to work at some point in the AM) and are killing the environment with the batt production - out of sight, out of mind irrationality.

I was just pricing a solar roof yet again last weekend since I heard legislation was passed to increase the amount that can be written off out of fed income taxes this year - used to cap at $2K, which was stupid, so that has been lifted - a good thing the Obama admin has done IMHO so that is 1 for him (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Even with what I figured would be close to a $10K income tax write-off I am still somewhere in the 15yr break-even on cost (~$10K out of pocket for a roof that provides about half my summer useage, double for a complete system, no backup batts, still locked into grid for night juice) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif) I am pretty juice friendly and even with the air on last summer my peak cost for elect was ~$120 in August, and last year we set records for consecutive days above 90deg that month.

so if I get ALL my juice from solar somehow, and was ALWAYS at peak which is not true, $20K/$120 = 167 months break-even (or 14yrs!!!). So it is clear that our gov't has no real desire to promote truly green ideas... only what appears green to get elected/re-elected.

If the gov't really meant biz it would stop taking our tax dollars and giving it to people to loan to us or sell back to us essentially (how is paying interest on my tax dollars helping me again??) and instead make solar roofing a 5-7yr break-even to match the current expectancy for occupancy...

I would rather the $1 trillion they were printing were simply divided evenly among ALL tax paying adults and they just sent us all a check for ~$7K... and that assumes HALF the US population is tax-paying adults BTW... and see how stoked the economy gets when the have-nots finally have for once. Ford/GM/Chrysler couldn't keep up with the demand for new cars if working families got $14K. I would buy a solar roof tomorrow if 75% of the cost were covered that way.

Silly taxpayers, Trix are for government!

[Demick]

If I shut my 914 off at stop lights, put it in first gear and take off by using the starter motor, I'll be driving a hybrid right? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/driving.gif)

Correct. Only your 'hybrid' power will come partially from your gas motor, partially from the diesel motor in the towtruck that helps you get home after your starter gives up.

[turboman808]

I am all for having a "green home". As a kid I grew up in a solar powered house. We got our heat, electric and hot water from panels on top of the house and in the back yard. This was in the 80s and it didn't work so well. Obviously we still have to be on the grid. 20 years later I went to Kansas and the house is still there with updated solar power and is pretty state of the art.

I really am all for conserving energy. I even installed energy conservative devices all around my apartment. I have timers on the hot water heater and on the ac.

Where I draw the line is if someone comes along and tells me I cannot have a 427 big block motor in a sports car. Or worse someone idiot in congress tried to push a bill banning high performance tires in the US. Amazing what these guys think is ok to do on capitol hill. Tell me I cannot drive down the street on hoosiers if I want.

[Todd Enlund]

After seeing my score compaired with the other scores in my class, it is fair to say that I am not green.

Zach

Dunno... might just be fair to say you're honest...

[craig3x]

Hmm, I wonder if my 914 rotary engine conversion is green. It burns your eyes standing 15 feet behind it. But it's fun being in the cockpit!

[Todd Enlund]

I wonder whats gonna happen when these batteries in these cars when need to be replaced and the owners can't afford them? I also wonder who will take the old batteries?

Oblivious owners will just continue to drive them, as non-hybrids, getting 20 MPG because of the ballast that they are carrying.

Top Gear did a test... they put the Stig in a Prius, and had him run laps around the test track. Jeremy followed in an M3. IIRC, the Prius got 19 MPG during the flogging, and the comparatively leisurely pace for the M3 netted 24 MPG.

[craig3x]

I am very green. I pee over the balcony to save water. You would think my neighbors below would appreciate this gesture for their kids future but they don't

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/confused24.gif)

Haha, I do the same thing, but I try to hit my neighbors

[degreeoff]

well I do have a sailboat that I use A L O T...does that count?....but wait 1/2 the time Bmore is in the wrong direction from the true wind so I motor.....LOL

[SLITS]

I'm not, but my underwear is .................... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/barf.gif)

[dkjens]

I ride my bicycle to and from work, not to be green, but as an attempt to loose the gut, but it still counts right? Plus it's exiting riding a bike on public streets, my little brother says I have road rage even on my bike, I get a little loud with the f and c words he he.
Then there's the '96 Tahoe, 15 mpg if I'm lucky, 9-10 mpg if towing my 5500 lb toy hauler.
The '73 914 w. Chevy 283, you actually start crying when sitting in trafic he he.
And a multitude of 2-stroke model plane gas engines ranging from 100cc twins to 300cc flat fours, swinging 24" to 36" props, but I only run 80/1 mixture oil.
byndbad914 hit it right on the head when mentioning Mars. Earth changes its climate, it has all through history. Any person thinking we, the people, are a significant factor in what's happening with the climate is a fool. Algie in the oceans puke out more CO2 than we would if all of China and India were motorized like Americans.
The posts about the energy cost or "carbon footprint" of the hybrids make me feel really good about NOT owning one.