Date:         Wed, 4 May 2005 21:26:10 -0400
Reply-To:     Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         Joy Hecht <jhecht@ALUM.MIT.EDU>
Subject:      Re: gas mileage--existing cars kept running have a huge edge
Content-Type: multipart/mixed;

Figuring out lifetime impact (or life cycle assessment, as it's called in the trade) is quite hard.  How do you compare the impact of twenty years of GHG emissions against the future problems disposing of hybrid car batteries?  Two quite different kinds of environmental problems.  How do you trade off the emissions caused by running an old polluting vehicle like a Vanagon for three decades against the energy consumed (and GHGs emitted) by manufacturing a new car and replacing the old one?

There's all kinds of arguments one can come up with for why almost any vehicle is preferable to any other (okay, maybe not SUVs!), but it's much harder to really tally up all the different possible impacts.

Except that biking is definitely better for health and the environment.  Unfortunately you can't live in a bike!  And it's a bit slow for many purposes.



Joy


****************************************************************
Joy Hecht
and Matilda, 1989 Burgundy Vanagon

For musings about life and the vanadventures:
http://users.rcn.com/jhecht/gypsy

****************************************************************

:::-----Original Message-----
:::From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf
:::Of Jim Felder
:::Sent: Wednesday, May 04, 2005 7:48 PM
:::To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
:::Subject: Re: gas mileage--existing cars kept running have a huge edge
:::environmentally
:::
:::Or biking.
:::
:::But you have to look at the potential of the vehicle to carry
:::passengers, what is the cost per passenger mile, and then you have to
:::drive the van accordingly. Driving a van or any other vehicle with one
:::person in it isn't making very good use of the vehicle's potential cost
:::per passenger mile. If I remember correctly, the Whole Earth Catalog
:::back in the early 70s lauded the freight locomotive and the
:::split-window bus as the lowest cost per passenger mile vehicles that
:::ran on fossil fuel (it's hard to beat a sailboat).
:::
:::Then there's the impact on the environment from the manufacture of the
:::car. The vanagon may get 30 miles to the gallon less than a Prius, but
:::will never have a huge, expensive battery that has to be buried
:::somewhere, and you may never recover the energy it took to manufacture
:::it. The vanagon, if you drove it sensibly for a number of years (and
:::who of us hasn't) and by driving it you kept one or more new cars from
:::being consumed, you'd probably come out way, way ahead environmentally.
:::And that's if you never ever have to haul home a stack of 4 x 8 plywood
:::or go offroad at all.
:::
:::Don't just focus on the mileage. Consider the lifetime impact. How may
:::BTUs does it take to make a car? How much plastic resin?
:::
:::Jim