Brad Ideas - How Prius drivers are gross polluters and other lessons of carbon credits - Comments

Carbon credits

brad — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:56:04 -0700

Today’s carbon credits are not properly enforced, so cheaper than they should be, but no, they are not indulgences or a way to buy your way out of hell.

Rather, not having them, not having the limits they imply, is letting people get out of hell free. If you’re going to allow any pollution (and politically, you are) properly enforced credits will send the money and effort where it does the most good.

Whoa

Shirley Yewgest — Wed, 27 May 2009 15:18:53 -0700

Carbon credits are a straw man. They are like medieval indulgences used to buy your way out of hell. They are a no-op in this argument. I remember the benefit drives and charities to save the rainforests. Now, a new generation is slashing and burning the rainforests, thus negating the temporary benefits of the rainforest groups. These carbon credit purchases are paying someone's salary but doing nothing to help.

As for the car being more or less polluting...the batteries are 100% recyclable and designed for the life of the car. Toyota has yet to replace a battery due to wear and this is 9 years after they started selling in the US.

Using the cost of the car as a point for finger waggling, realize that people will gladly spend 100K on a sportscar or 40-50K on a fully appointed land boat to ferry the little ones to their soccer games. Complaining about greenies spending an extra 2-8K on a hybrid car is a specious argument. Its their money. You can call them fools, but that means anyone not driving a car covered in rust and Bondo is a fool. You can drive a beater into the ground for 2K, but would you do that if you could afford a nicer ride?

I got a PI in 2001 because it was the 21st century and we did not have jet packs yet. I liked the hack value of it. People insulted me and told me I was stupid to get it (these were people with cars that cost twice what mine did). Then, when prices spiked, they all dumped their landboats at a loss and bought hybrids and called me a visionary. Wankers. I suspect now that prices have dipped, they are shopping for eight seaters with cup holders, diaper changing tables and televisions...

It just isn't true. The

John Douglas — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 12:01:13 -0700

It just isn't true. The Prius is not tested for city driving. It is not tested for bad roads. It is not tested for stops and starts. This is a fact. Every test from outside researchers about the Prius has led to the same conclusion, the technology is not ready for driving. You are much better off getting a small gas efficient car, like a Honda Civic. You can argue all you want, but all research except that paid for by the manufacturer shows the Prius to be useless unless you live in some perfect suburb and your commute to work is a five minute drive away and you never use the vehicle for a vacation.

Neither is quite true

brad — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:55:20 -0700

How you drive does make a difference. But the hybrid systems are tuned for efficiency city driving, which is a much more common form of driving, and the M3 is a sportscar designed for speed, which is fun, but rare.

It surprises people to learn the Prius gets better mileage in the city than on the highway, when most cars are the reverse. That’s because stop and go is highly inefficient of an ICE, and the hybrid design is very good at stop and go. With that in place, the Prius is taking advantage of the fact that slower driving is more efficient than faster driving, because the inefficiency of air drag goes up with the square of velocity (and power needed goes up with the cube.)

So no, vehicle design is also quite important as well as driving style.

The other comments, about the extra cost of the Hybrid system, both in dollars and environmental damage, is the point made in this post. The Prius (at $2/gallon) is not very effective in term of “how much you help the environment per extra dollar spent.” At $4/gallon it is more effective and at European prices it can actually save money, depending on amount of driving and style of driving.

Oh boy

John Douglas — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 10:26:48 -0700

Before this starts the usual discussion let us address the biggest issue. The end is absolutely right. It is how you drive. This is why the test is important and why you can't argue that they were pushing the Prius to the max. When Prius is tested by the manufacturer it is not taken out and driven on real roads, it is put on a treadmill for a car and run at optimal conditions. The fact is the cars we have that are gas guzzlers are already designed to consume gas in our world, not a treadmill. All the things that add to the performance, while consuming gasoline, also make it more gas friendly than the tech to eliminate it all. Real world driving involves a great deal of stops and starts, which hinder fuel economy (especially in the hybrid) and the hybrid is not really made for highway driving. For the average driver, a hybrid is something that makes you feel good as a person, but does nothing. Especially when you consider what goes into fabricating them. They are concept car that was rushed to market.

Prius vs BMW M3

Tom D — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 08:45:18 -0700

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chskjb4WPj8

Prius fails. Another case of human's patting themselves on the back for making stupid choices.

Carbon Contributions

Aaron Wissner — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 06:40:22 -0700

Hi Brad,

I don't have time to read this entire article on the carbon contribution of a Prius vs. an other car, but I will add a quick comment for your reflection.

Carbon contribution is 100% proportional to the amount of money spent. In other words, any two $25,000 cars, no matter how they are build or what the materials, contribute equally to carbon emissions.

How could this be the case, when one can add up all of the material and energy ingredients and etc? Because, in our global economy, the money doesn't just stop moving once the raw materials have been paid for, but those mining companies, and labor employees, go ahead and spend that same money into the global economy, and as the money moves from one person to the next, the contribution of that $25,000 in spending evens out to the average of the global economy.

This point is almost always overlooked by anyone doing carbon calculations, that it is simply the number of dollars spent that is a measure of carbon contribution.

A simple way to figure the carbon contribution per dollar (or money unit) is to divide the global GDP by the global human carbon emission figure. The rate is something like 1.3 pounds of CO2 per dollar.

Thus, those individuals who spend the least money, live on the least money, are the best at conserving their cash, etc. are the ones with the least carbon contributions; whereas, those of us who spend every penny we earn (and then some through borrowing/loans), contribute proportionally more.

All other carbon contribution measures attempt to draw artificial boundaries around money expenditures, which is nonsensical in a global monetary system.

So there you go, some food for thought.

Cheers,

Aaron Wissner

How credits work

brad — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 16:12:03 -0700

No, done properly credits are the right system. Our goal is to reduce total pollution, or for more immediate pollutants, pollution in an area. (CO2 is a global thing.)

Society (government) decides how much pollution it is going to tolerate, including none. But it rarely picks "none" because the constituents aren't ready for that. Reducing pollution costs money -- if it saved money you don't need too much incentive to make it happen. You want the money spent on reducing pollution to go where it is the most effective. If you can reduce 1,000 tons of pollutant for $20 by making a factory cleaner or reduce 100 tons for $5 by doing something around your own house, it is far better for the environment to take the $5 and pay the factory. That's what a market in credits solves.

Now, the best credit systems depend on legal total emissions caps, and those caps are supposed to reduce every year. So in the first year, the government might see there is 1 million tons of pollution, and set a cap of 800,000 tons to get people to cut back. Once that is attained, the next year it might reduce the cap to 750,000 tons and so on until it reaches a sustainable level.

Instead of "Think globally, act locally" this is "Think globally, act where your action will produce an ever greater good than it would locally."

These credits create demand for whatever technology works best to reduce pollution. They don't particularly love solar or hybrid cars or anything else. They love what works. It is up to the regular world of investment for people to invest in technologies that in the future will bring good returns. That's a very well proven system.

You're losing the point

Laurent — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 13:08:24 -0700

I have read this interesting but flawed "idea". It seems the writer/blogger loses the point. The main point of buying carbon credits is to over time create a situation that polluting becomes too expensive for companies so they take action to reduce their emissions themselves.

Let's not forget pollution is a process. First: You pollute, then you need to clean up your mess. If you don't pollute, no need to clean up your mess. What the Priuses and Solar panels do for the environment is to reduce the amount of pollution generated in the first place. It is much better than pollute like a pig and pay to have it cleaned up. It seems to me it is a more responsible approach. Also, as some others have said in this post, investing in clean energy like priuses and solar panels will inevitably lead to better products that will become even more viable, cheaper alternatives in the future. So instead of paying to clean up the mess you are making now, you are reducing your carbon output and investing to reduce it even more.

Second point is that if everybody was doing what the writer suggest (buying carbon credits) We would reduce the price of the unit of carbon emission, which would then enable companies to continue to buy cheap credits and keep polluting more. It seems to me that would not really solve the problem...

So in conlcusion: It seems the writer/blogger encourages us to keep the status quo and keep polluting like little piggies and buy a good consciences with Carbon credits...

prius

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 08:39:45 -0700

Do you work or consult for GM? I've never gotten less than 50 mpg on my Prius on a tankfull.

More comment from another Prius driver in the UK

Trefor — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 02:42:03 -0800

I'm actually incredibly pleased with my Prius T-spirit - it's a great car to drive with the integrated satnav,phone, engine monitor & audio + the hybrid drive especially when I'm forced to crawl through London at 5 miles an hour, I regularly get around 50 m.p.g even when I'm doing that - while on a long motorway cruise it easily gets 55 mpg even in winter..and besides the high price of gas in the UK mine is a company provided car which I have to pay tax on - most drivers for an equivalently priced car would be paying at least $6000 a year in tax based on CO2 emissions - because of the low Prius emissions I only pay about $2000 - so I'm twice as happy

And the votes from the UK...

Anonymous — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 15:26:10 -0800

I own a prius as we have a congestion charging system in central london and the prius is excempt. Petrol here costs Â£3.80 per gallon, thats at least $7.50 per gallon. congestion charge at Â£8.00 per day or $15 per day ... call it Â£1800 per year or $3500..

petrol savings at 200 gallons Â£450 or $900 ...

so conservatively I reckon I'm just about ahead of the game....

It's not green but my pockets happier....

Certainly the more expensive

brad — Fri, 05 May 2006 01:36:27 -0700

Certainly the more expensive gas gets, the more cost-effective things that save gas are going to get. Of course what you save in a Prius depends on your type of driving (much more saving in city than highway) and amount, but at today's prices it looks better and better.

You shouldn't think from this article that I really oppose the Prius. The article is really about the economics of pollution reduction, and what credits mean to the equation.

Updated figures

Anonymous — Thu, 04 May 2006 18:31:16 -0700

Using $3.50 per gallon (San Diego price today) and 44 mpg Prius:
Avg of 180 gal/year savings over a Corolla and 284 over a Camry comes to 232 gal/year, or $812 per year, much more than the orig calc of [ ...call it 200 gallons or $450/year â€” $2800 present value over the predicted 8 year life of the battery.]

Multiplying the 8 year Present value of $2800 by x 812/450 = $5052. And if the battery lasts 12 years then the present value rises to $6761.

Carbon credits

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 06:19:29 -0800

Living in the US, where the carbon market is artificial, there is the option of forming groups which can then fund the development or application of clean technologies in countries such as india. If you think about the fact the country has almost year round sunshine, a very large population and severe power crunch, funding (indirectly buying carbon credits) use of photovolataic systems in housing developments, recycling waste water, etc, would do a bunch of good for your consciounces. Additionally, it would do real good.

How Prius drivers are gross polluters and other lessons of carbon credits

brad — Sun, 04 Dec 2005 19:46:22 -0800

I’ve been thinking more about environmental economics since I blogged about retail carbon credits. I was surprised about how cheap (some would say unrealisticly cheap) wholesale credits are — about $2.20 per tonne of CO2. (Update: This price keeps changing. The U.S. price is clearly out of whack down to just 25 cents per tonne in 2009. The European price has declined too, from $20/tonne when I wrote this to $14/tonne in fall 2009.)

Today, many of my friends have bought a car like the Toyota Prius, feeling they are doing their bit to help the environment by burning less gas. The Prius costs around $3,000-$6,000 more than a comparable old-style engine car (in part because high demand keeps the price high), and the savings on gasoline don’t justify it on a financial basis unless you do nothing but drive all day. So the main reason to buy it is to help the environment and to make a statement before your peer group. The Camry Hybrid, which gets 32mpg instead of 23mpg costs about $5,000 more than the regular Camry.)

Problem is, there’s an argument that you’re hurting the environment, counterintuitive as that sounds. And no, it’s not just the unanswered questions about recycling the fancy batteries in the Prius when they fade, where fairly positive results have been returned so far. Read on…