jajagabor

The Prius Conundrum

Insofar as the comment(s) about the Prius's (or any hybrid) batteries filling up landfills, such as Rshrimp's, who said, "Wait till these things start hitting the landfill. What do you do with that giant cell phone battery?" It might edify him (them) to read the short comment below.

Ms. Mary Nickerson, Technical Marketing Manager for Toyota, speaking what Toyota does with spent, Prius batteries (see link at bottom for interview):

"Toyota dealers and the nine regional Toyota parts distribution centers collaborate on battery recycling. That kind of networking is something Toyota generally excels at. When a customer's Prius battery pack needs replacement, the truck that delivered a new one to his dealer returns to the parts center with the spent battery, and any other parts destined for disassembly and reclamation. When enough batteries have accumulated at a parts center to fill a truck, they are shipped to a recycle operation."

Interview link:
www.treehugger.com/fil...

Exxon Mobil Diversifies Into the Hybrid Car Market

Moneymaker said: "I remember reading somewhere that a Toyota Hybrid had a larger carbon foot print from birth to death than a big Hummer due to the manufacture of the batterys."

Not very likely. Have you ever seen the size of the battery in a Hummer? Very big. For that matter, if you've seen a Hummer itself (haha), it too is very, very big. And when you make big vehicles (and I'm not talking about driving them yet) with big batteries, believe me, it doesn't take a rocket or any other scientist to understand (even without looking too hard, yet) that the carbon footprint is bigger for the Hummer.

And where did you read this? I bet it wasn't in a scientific journal. I've heard the same silly argument made the same silly way about CF
bulbs being more carbon intensive in manufacturer than incandescent ones. And that argument too was gleaned from "some article somewhere." Nothing specific, of course. Not, say -- even a prestigious scientific magazine (not journal) like Scientific American, or maybe one of the more popular (but still credible) ones like Discovery, or Science Digest etc. etc. Nor National Geographic.

Of course, anyone could print up something and claim it is the "Journal of such and such" and make the typeface and everything look so-very technical and prestigious, and thus better able to fool those who don't generally spend their time in Universities and getting familiar with the ones that really are part of academia's "bona-fides."

I'm not being a snob -- but obviously anyone who is even half-serious about an issue should be able to remember where they read something as revolutionary as the idea that a Toyota Prius is more carbon intensive from birth to death than a Hummer! Otherwise, why would they remember any of it at all? The issue of carbon emissions is not exactly a side or esoteric issue these days.

So think hard. Maybe you read it on one of those so-called conservative, online blogs. Or yes, maybe it was on Faux News.