I've read about the "Dust to Dust - Automotive Energy Report" in the CAA (AAA) magazine.

The general points of it are:
- Producing a BRAND NEW Hybrid car has more energy related costs then buying a new "older design" model.
- The energy costs calculated are the design, R&D, production, transportation and sale (among 4000 other variables)
- More relevant to us is the used car purchase and the recycling of parts

A similar article can be read here:
Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage -By Chris Demorro
http://clubs.ccsu.edu/Recor..._item.asp?NewsID=188

quote Originally posted in article: "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’s 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. "

There is another discussion about it here:
http://www.hybridcars.com/e...st-energy-costs.html

The full "Dust to Dust" report - 363 pages long in it's PDF version:
http://www.cnwmr.com/
http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder...%20PDF%20VERSION.pdf

Now, I'm not kidding myself. We all know our 80s emissions standards are not up to par with newly designed cars, however:
- Are we reducing our carbon footprint by driving a 20 year old car? rather then buying a new one.
- Are we reducing our carbon footprint by recycling used parts among us rather then buying new ones at the dealer?

Thoughts ?

------------------

T-Top Conversion~Dual HUD~LED Setup~Red Fieros~Montreal Club~Carputer

[This message has been edited by Mister (edited 02-26-2008).]

I can hardly wait till Hummers are twenty years old so I can buy one to help save the environment by reducing my carbon footprint.
Even if I could afford a Prius it wouldn't be environmentally responsible to buy one after reading this stuff.

In the meantime I'll just keep driving my Fiero as my effort to help stop global warming.

any new design has R&D costs, over and above production. even our 20 + year old fieros once had R&D costs. and the more new the technology, the higher those costs will be. in 20-30 years after the R&D is long paid for by early adopters we'll be picking the once-new tech out of the junkyards for cheap.

even if you just view it in terms of dollars spent, keeping an older car alive makes much more sense than buying a new one. for less than $1000 we can get a drivable car, for another couple of thousand we can make it reliable (new cars break too), for another 10k we can make it perform and handle about as well as a 30k car. sure, it's nice to have the new features and designs, but the waste is horrendous. when a car goes to the junkyard it's usually over a couple of hundred in mechanical repairs or a thousand in cosmetic repairs, and tens of thousands worth of value gets crushed.

[This message has been edited by lurker (edited 02-26-2008).]

Agreed lurker, the question here is more the environmental aspect of things.
If by buying an old Fiero and using mainly recycled parts are we balancing the "larger" carbon foot print we leave in the atmosphere
not driving "cleaner cars" ?

quote Originally posted by Mister: Agreed lurker, the question here is more the environmental aspect of things. If by buying an old Fiero and using mainly recycled parts are we balancing the "larger" carbon foot print we leave in the atmosphere not driving "cleaner cars" ?

Probably not, but I've seen a lot of tv ads recently for new vehicles in which they proudly boast "5 models that get 30 MPG!!"

I get that in my stock 84 4 spd.
Admit I may put out way more total bad emissions, but am burning less gasoline. Perhaps it's a wash.
Don

[This message has been edited by calamityjane (edited 02-28-2008).]

face it, our 20 year old cars are not going to last forever, and eventually we will get newer technology. once the environmental costs of r&d can be averaged out (say, in 40 years), the environmental impact of the newer tech will (hopefully) be better than a new old-tech car. as usual, the early adopters pay the premium, and we breathe the same air as they do, and pay the same for gas.

quote Originally posted by calamityjane:Probably not, but I've seen a lot of tv ads recently for new vehicles in which they proudly boast "5 models that get 30 MPG!!" I get that in my stock 84 4 spd. Admit I may put out way more total bad emissions, but am burning less gasoline. Perhaps it's a wash. Don

4 CYL are an asset when 87oct is $1.22 a liter around here

quote Originally posted by lurker: face it, our 20 year old cars are not going to last forever, and eventually we will get newer technology. once the environmental costs of r&d can be averaged out (say, in 40 years), the environmental impact of the newer tech will (hopefully) be better than a new old-tech car. as usual, the early adopters pay the premium, and we breathe the same air as they do, and pay the same for gas.

Good point.

quote Originally posted by lurker: face it, our 20 year old cars are not going to last forever.

I don't know there are still some Model T's around. I don't see the future with gasoline in the picture, I see it with some other Alternative fuel, I am banking on Ethanol right now.

Ethanol is a waste. Less energy per volume than gas means lower MPG. Water contamination rules out much of the existing distribution systems across the US. And the cost of creating it far out prices gas, with out the government subsidies. And don't even get me started on that 'Flex Fuel' crap that GM markets as "green".

There are 3 really solid potentials I've been keeping my eyes on:
1) Full electric. Nano technology is having a huge impact on super capacitors. As this technology advances, we could see capacitors with the same energy density as lithium based batteries, with none of the chemicals, memory, or shorting issues.

2) Hydrogen. Tons of research is going into finding more efficient ways of separating Hydrogen from the environment. Between environmentally friendly hydrolysis to hydrogen-crapping bacteria. Eventually these costs will become lower (or at least lower than Gasoline as the price continues to rise). The other problem, energy density, is also being worked on with hydrogen bonding materials. These compounds mean that you can store more hydrogen in an uncompressed container of metal pellets than in a highly compressed tank. And over the last few years we've seen a lot of advances in the Fuel Cell arena. Coupled with the recent break through in capacitor technology, this is looking like a really great option.

3) Bio-Diesel. BD from soy, while better than ethanol, is not a viable solution. It takes too much land to make too little fuel. But there are other options! Algae farms are starting to make some big steps into the full scale production realm. The trick is relatively simple: grow a bunch of oil hungry algae in open pit ponds, pump the algae through a reactor with the exhaust from a coal burning power plant. The result is a huge decrease in emissions from the coal plant, and acres upon acres of hydrocarbon filled algae, all of which can be used to produce bio-diesel and livestock feed. And BD rocks because you can still use all of the existing diesel distribution systems, all diesel engines can run on it, and it contains more energy per volume than Gasoline.

I don't think any single fuel technology is going to dominate our future the way gasoline has for the last 80 years. But a blend of full electric, hybread diesel/electric, bio-diesel, and hydrogen fuel cells are going to be the future looking at the current trends.

I'm still sizing up that VW 2.0l TDI conversion... Only 140 hp, but a gut checking 236 ftlbs of torque and upwards of 40mpg.

-Rick

Nothing to save, we lost the battle allready.

Mini nuclear reactors for cars looks like the only way to go.

http://www.nextenergynews.c...-nuclear-12.17b.html

Toshiba Builds 100x Smaller Micro Nuclear Reactor
Toshiba has developed a new class of micro size Nuclear Reactors that is designed to power individual apartment buildings or city blocks. The new reactor, which is only 20 feet by 6 feet, could change everything for small remote communities, small businesses or even a group of neighbors who are fed up with the power companies and want more control over their energy needs.



The 200 kilowatt Toshiba designed reactor is engineered to be fail-safe and totally automatic and will not overheat. Unlike traditional nuclear reactors the new micro reactor uses no control rods to initiate the reaction. The new revolutionary technology uses reservoirs of liquid lithium-6, an isotope that is effective at absorbing neutrons. The Lithium-6 reservoirs are connected to a vertical tube that fits into the reactor core. The whole whole process is self sustaining and can last for up to 40 years, producing electricity for only 5 cents per kilowatt hour, about half the cost of grid energy.

Toshiba expects to install the first reactor in Japan in 2008 and to begin marketing the new system in Europe and America in 2009.