Comments on: Prius easily beats Hummer in life-cycle energy use, “Dust to Dust” report has no basis in fact

By: john

john — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 06:38:27 +0000

Never read such nonsense – seems the author(s) relate energy to cost of gasoline at the bowser. Coal for steel, electricity for aluminium production and government subsidies do not relate to the cost of energy at the bowser. Can’t we get someone technical to write techncial articles. People appear to want to read articles that justify their choice of car. Sad really

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 21 May 2009 01:59:37 +0000

Thanks for taking the time to try and figure out what CNW was thinking when they wrote that truely amazing report (Dust to Dustbin). Has anyone ever calculated how much total Nickle is in a Prius and Hummer (or any other car in the CNW report)? It seems likely that the Hummer might actually have more TOTAL nickle, by mass, in its steel and other components than the Prius does. Remember that the Prius generation II battery is a total of 45 kg so the total Nickle in it must be less than that… (10 kg?). Thanks in advance.

By: Scott

Scott — Wed, 20 May 2009 15:25:09 +0000

Thanks for your debunking of this widespread hoax report. I’m curious as to how the lifecycle emissions (including production ect.) of the prius compares to a regular car with out a large battery, but with good gas milage, like a honda civic. Any good analyses you can reccomend?

By: OG

OG — Fri, 01 May 2009 12:32:31 +0000

As a moron and knucklehead who has not one but 2 SUVs (and I live in the UK so have the high fuel prices to contend with) this article doesn’t make me rethink anything at all. My SUVs are workhorses – they earn their keep. There is currently no hybrid or alternative fuel vehicle that will allow me to do so much as I can do with the current 17 yr old SUVs I already have. The Lexus hybrid SUV has no real off-road capabilities so isn’t a practical solution. My Land Rover Defender is a go anywhere camper, rescue and recovery vehicle, people carrier and commuting vehicle rolled into one. At the moment there is no comparably capable and versatile vehicle that is economically viable and available.

By: Marion Delgado

Marion Delgado — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Sam K and Jim F do what market fundamentalists always do – mistake their GDP mystifications and Austrian economic theocratic and philosophical convention reports for facts and events in the real world.

They’re both wrong. Joe Romm’s attack here is directly to the point of the study, and directly refutes it. They aren’t arguing at cross purposes. The study, Sam, and Jim are irretrievably wrong. The study in every way, and by orders of magnitude. Jim and Sam by their misunderstanding of every single point argued in the post. He directly, and repeatedly, answered the ECONOMIC claims. So did many commenters.

It’s not that the numbers are suspect, it’s that the whole thing is bullshit, reminiscent of Ben Wattenberg or John Stossel or John Fund or Julian Simon or Bjorn Lomborg – fake contrarianism for attention – everyone enjoys “everything you know is wrong” or “amazingly, it turns out that …” stories.

RFK’s GDP speech is still as relevant as it was in 1968, I think. CNW, but also Sam and Jim are promoting the paradigm that teaches that if 2 men toss a bag of money to each other across a room all day, the GDP is going up and that, since economic activity in the market always reflects net advantage to the consumer, means that it has to be good for the majority, good for the environment, etc.

By: Jonathan Pierre

Jonathan Pierre — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:39:34 +0000

these are the greenest things that are changing the world and make the way we see how we can change the world with this topics and discussions, this is just really great!

By: Thuldai

Thuldai — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 09:56:50 +0000

That might shed some light on their methodology.

So they might assume that any economic activity causes environmental damage, and they even find a fixed ratio for it.

In that case the main reason (as far as I understand) that a Hummer is “more ecological” than a Prius is that it has to be largely discarded after its use while the nicely recylable Prius causes more economic activity after its lifespan and (so they conclude) more environmental damage.

So according to the report we then should rather force Prius users (and any car for that matter) NOT to recycle their old vehicles as hence economic activity is avoided and the world a better place.

Now that’s still flawed and now we even know why.

By: JimF

JimF — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:18:50 +0000

i don’t want to defend the original study, because I don’t know the calculations taht went into it, but i believe commenter SamK is correct. The attack here misunderstands what the study’s authors were tring to do, calculate the entire environmental impact, not the cost/ economic impact. Again, i’m not saying they did it correctly, and their numbers looks suspect, but this attack seems to miss the point.

By: Sam K

Sam K — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:23:39 +0000

A lot of the comments and reviws I’ve seen seem to have missed this fact.
They converted this to dollars because everyone understands them and they are more tangable than joules and Kw etc.

By: Sam K

Sam K — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 00:19:11 +0000

The costs mentioned in the report are not the actual costs to anyones wallet, but the environmental costs/impact of all the energy and materials used to design, make and run etc. the vehicle from when someone first had the initial idea for the vehicle to when it is scrapped.