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Bunch of Prius Donnas
Having been blogging for eight years now, you’d think I would have covered pretty much all my hot button issues. But no, humans—and Americans in particular—keep finding new and inventive ways to demonstrate that they “have been Educated Stupid,” as the infrequently-insightful Gene Ray would gladly tell you.
This particular rant was ignited by the following two gems. The first is this Globe article: Yamaha offers electric scooters for green errands. The second was an email a well-intentioned friend sent to me, which read:
We have an electric mower because B. wanted to use something greener than the traditional gas-powered.
These kinds of moronic statements utterly fail Critical Thinking 101. There is absolutely nothing greener about electric engines than gasoline engines.
It’s never been a secret that nearly all of this country’s electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels. To be more specific, this US Dept. of Energy report states that last year, 69.2 percent of the electricity generated in the US came from the burning of coal, coke, petroleum, natural gas, and other gases. And an additional 20.2 percent was generated at your friendly neighborhood nuclear power plant.
If you do the math, that means only 10 percent of our power comes from hydro and all other energy sources combined. That ratio means that running an electric car or lawn mower is at best only 10 percent more environmentally responsible than burning fossil fuels directly.
But it gets worse, because generating electricity in a power plant is not as efficient as fueling an engine with the equivalent volume of fossil fuel. An electrical plant must not just burn fossil fuel, but also inefficiently heat water to inefficiently drive immense steam turbines to inefficiently generate electricity which is then inefficiently transported hundreds, perhaps thousands of miles to the end user, who then probably stores it in an inefficient and environmentally hazardous battery before using it to perform work. Every step along the way contributes to making electricity less and less environmentally friendly than simply running a gasoline engine directly.
Sure, in theory someday we might generate more than a tiny fraction of our electricity from hydro plus solar plus wind plus tidal, but that just isn’t the present reality. Right now, almost all the electricity you use comes from power plants that burn fossil fuels, which simply centralizes the environmental devastation of burning oil, coal, and gasoline and hides the evidence from the end user. Somehow Americans—including all those smug, misinformed Prius owners—have become stupid enough to believe that just because they don’t see the pollution themselves, they think it isn’t happening.
Well, it is happening. Our finite reserves of fossil fuels are being depleted and pollution is being released every single time you tap into the electrical grid, whether it’s to recharge your precious iPad, to waste your hours playing Halo 3, or to power your “environmentally friendly” Prius.
“Zero emissions” doesn’t actually mean zero emissions, people!
So yeah. I have an issue with people who think using electricity is any “greener” than using fossil fuels.
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A Prius gets ~50MPG. This is significantly greener than most other commute mechanisms. Yes, it would be nice if we had reliable usable public transport; I vote to increase my own taxes when transport bonds are up. Yes, it would be nice to be able to live within walking distance of work. I don't. The Prius is a good option. Prius drivers did, in fact, make an environmentally concious choice and an effective one. One that cost a premium to make, too, when we made it. I'm tired of being called smug because of it - unless you can drive a kid to school getting 50 MPG you can kiss my fuel efficient ass.
You are one of the few who has a more green commute choice, and you aren't getting a kid to school every day.
As far as electric lawnmowers go - yes, I have one. It runs on that handy fusion plant; we still overgenerate from our solar panels. I'd have switched to electric heat, but that would have required a complete main circuit replacement to handle the extra load from a larger solar array.
Being green requires more than just taking your own shopping bags to Whole Foods. It is possible, and some of us work at it.
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But for most Americans, they get that 50 mpg and think they're using less oil and producing less greenhouse gasses. But in reality, to get that kind of mileage, they've just replaced using gasoline with using electricity generated by burning coal, oil, or nat gas.
So whether Prius drivers made an effective environmental choice depends on where their electricity comes from, and I still think the vast majority of them never thought that through.
One friend on FB did make the following point, tho. While most Prius' still run on electricity generated by fossil fuels, they *are* set up to automatically take advantage of any positive changes in how our electricity is generated. So if our major public utilities successfully transition to more environmentally friendly generation, you hybrid/electric owners will already be one step ahead of people who still operate conventional gas-guzzlers.
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The hybrid electric gets efficiency from running a smaller engine at more or less constant speeds for standard driving; the gas motor charges the battery which provides motive torque. (rapid accelleration just takes torque directly from the engine and runs the engine inefficiently. Mileage plummets). The Prius also tries to recapture kinetic energy from braking, though I doubt that makes more than a percent or two difference in efficiency.
It is, simply, a better power plant design than the standard car. It's not an order of magnitude better, but it's a very good first step.
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