A study from Switzerland referred to but not linked here is causing some messy diapers.
Some fuel-sipping combustion-engine-powered cars have a smaller environmental impact than battery-electric cars because of both the metals and chemical process required to produce lithium-ion batteries and the electricity required to recharge the cars, according to a report by Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, or EMPA.
There are several issues here (and a look at the actual report would be helpful, but I gather it’s behind some paywall somewhere), having to do with how the electricity is made (coal is still king), and some oddball elements used to make motors and power electronics.
The greenies aren’t happy, as is evident from the comments in this article. Needless to say, the dingleberries making the comments are from the Ludwig van Quixote school of Magical Thermodynamics where there’s no such thing as a Carnot efficiency. The unicorns take care of all of that stuff.
Is the study and it’s assumptions valid? Probably, but again, I can’t read the source document. The rare earth thing, IMO is a solvable issue. The other issues get progressively harder. In the end, it doesn’t matter what some study claims, what matters is how the market shakes out.
But if I were going to buy a new econobox with the intention of putting a lot of miles on it, I’d be leaning toward the new diesels. Too bad there aren’t that many choices in the US right now (because the automakers got burned so badly in the ’80s).
[Dark, malevolent laughter]
Get a diesel for the environment? That doesn’t compute! Brain..shutting down…Smart grids…wind mills..Unicorn power…
“Green” is the opiate of the masses; an ad campaign designed for the purpose of the relinquishment of rights. It’s all bullshit.
Well, this is interesting:
Well. I don’t know what to think of this. It is like when you wake up in the morning, and you dog pours you a beer for breakfast. Do you question the dog, or drink the beer?
If these phony greenies really cared abt. the environment, they would welcome news like this.
That a technology, we already have is more efficient that some crazed scheme that is just a distant dream, and in fact more detrimental to the environment.
WTF is wrong with these idiots?
chickadee wrote:
That’s obvious, they are idiots.
@ Iron Fist:
The guy behind this organization seems like a great patriotic American and, dare I say it, a muzz as well.
Read abt. him and listen to a few minutes of the speech he made recently abt. freedom and democracy.
I have heard him on the Mark Levin show a few times. He seems authentic. And he is against the 911 mosk.
@ Bagua:
@ chickadee:
It isn’t about “Saving the Planet™”. It is about putting the serfs in their proper place of subservience, low standards of living, and zero expectations of upward mobiility. That is all the environmental movement has ever been about. The lunatic with the bomb babbling about “parasitic babies” isn’t the abberation. He is just an environmentalist that is willing to take a bit more direct action than someone like, say, al Gore. His dreams are their dreams, his goals their goals, it is just he used a pistol and a bomb, where they would use the might of the US Government and US troops/law enforcement to carry out their wishes. They really don’t want to put it to a vote. That is why they are waiting until the Lame Duck session to do it. Or they’ll just let the EPA do it, no vote needed.
@ chickadee:
We need more of him, then. A lot more of him.
@ Iron Fist:
Yup
@ Iron Fist:
Yup
Hezbollah places 15,000 rockets on border with Israel: Oren
MacDuff wrote:
I like Green.
gulfloafer wrote:
Cee Lo Green!
@ gulfloafer:
Green is the color of the Battlestandard of Mohammedanism.
Speaking of cars, while Jesse Jackson was participating in a peace march for justice (or something) in Detroit, his Cadillac was stolen and stripped.
Dear God, have I ever mentioned how totally ironic it would be if I won the Powerball? Food for thought. Amen.
Of course the argument is identical to that against compact florescent bulbs. Not only do they contain hazardous and relatively rare elements, but their economic worth is reflected in the unsupported cost: 25cents for an incandescent, $4.50 for a compact. Zero made in America.
V the K wrote:
Damn those teapartiers.
@ Iron Fist:
From snowcrash on last thread.
@ Iron Fist:
I sent them an email thanking them for their stance on Pvt Abdo.
@ pat:
I like the LED bulbs, but there’s no way I’d ever pay $30 for a single bulb.
drive by O/T:
New Zealand hit by earthquake
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/
if anyone sees goddess, add the kiwis to the prayer list.
I have to admit that I am intrigued by the idea of experiencing life in the ie. 1840′s. But it will be my choice to build a cabin in the woods with a stone fireplace that I can heat and cook on. And using candles and coal oil lamps and making my own clothes, canning food in the yard over a fire, making a garden, having chickens and all the rest. Just to experience what the early settlers experienced could be quite a revelation. Of course I want to walk back through the woods to my modern home and conveniences when I choose to.
But the eco-terrorist want to demean, punish and cripple our society by forcing this style of primitive existence on everyone, permanently. And what a surprise, the eco-maniacs will live like algore, in mansions sucking megawatts of energy. And we would be struggling just to survive.
What’s with these eco-martyrs anyway? I had a super liberal colleague who didn’t eat meat not because she didn’t like it, or even love animals that much. It was because she wanted to reduce her carbon output. She had no energy and had deep, dark circles under her eyes. I always want to say ‘Hey, honey. Eat a hamburger. It’s not that bad.’
@ gulfloafer:
Didja watch it? I love it. LOL He was part of gnarles barkley. Ace has a parody posting of the song.
Urban Infidel wrote:
What’s with all the self loathing? She is aware that she’s a carbon based life form?
@ Urban Infidel:
What abt. those gals in Britain who had their ‘tubes tied’ so they wouldn’t produce a child because they wanted to save the earth. LOL. And so it is the muzz who are populating England.
BTW, I have a friend who nearly died from anemia because she was a vegan vegetarian for too long.
She could hardly get out of bed in the morning and ended up having to get blood transfusions.
EATA HAMBURGER, is a good answer to many problems.
snowcrash wrote:
That’s funny as hell. Yeah, I saw the Ace parody earlier.
@ gulfloafer:
I read an article about kids today growing up are so terrified by their own existence as a direct threat to life on earth, it’s affecting them in a deeply negative way.
Children: Make Them Fear
- Climategate2009
The IPCC/TERI Chief Climate Scammer Con-artist Rajendra Pachauri.
Urban Infidel wrote:
@ chickadee:
Women need iron. Captain Obvious told me.
@ Bagua:
Is that what caused Ludwig?
@ Urban Infidel:
Maybe, but they still want iphones and ipads. LOL. They are superficially concerned about the planet, but not when it means self denial of cool electronic stuff.
Urban Infidel wrote:
This propaganda is child abuse.
snork wrote:
Certainly, he bought the propaganda. As we see, it can feed psychopathology.
Ludwig a perfect example of an educated person succumbing to AGW psychosis. This is a widespread phenomena infecting and corrupting science, environmentalism and politics.
snork wrote:
Yep, the warmists are dangerous and deceitful. The damage they are doing to science may take generations to overcome.
And with the government now in effective control of virtually the entire American auto industry, the choices will yet again shake out to be largely foreign made.
As evidenced by the large percentage of sales that went to foreign brands with the new auto purchase credit earlier in Barry’s regime.
This is hardly supported by the press report of EMPA.
The ecological balance for Diesel cars compared to electric cars with a lithium battery would only be better for cars with a fuel consumption below 4 liters/100 km. We don’t have such cars yet.
IPCC’s Rajendra Pachauri is damaging the world
The IPCC’s head should quit to avoid harming the global warming cause further, says Geoffrey Lean.
Snip…
Even the warmists are turning on this vile con-man Pachauri.
snork wrote:
The writer was a psychologist who treats children. She cited one case where a little girl refused to ride in cars, if she had to she would become very upset. Wouldn’t even touch a styrofoam cup, much less drink from one. Plastics bags? Well, you can only imagine.
snowcrash wrote:
And the electronics have a HUGE adverse impact with the toxic chemicals and such used to manufacture the things.
But hey, if the enviro-mentals don’t know about it, it didn’t really happen, now did it?
snowcrash wrote:
So true. And they want jobs too even though they voted for Osama..
snork wrote:
It really is. It puts such a burden of guilt and fear on little children who are too young to even process this insane agitprop. When ‘teacher” tells them we are killing polar bears they come home in tears. This is the progs who should be prosecuted for child abuse. It is reprehensible what they will do to push their agenda.
My Goodness
When [warmist]Geoffrey Lean takes agin Pachy, the world is coming to an end for the old charlatan.
snip…
@ snork:
Generations of first cousins reproducing is what produced Lewd Squid…
Agin is a dialect variant of against BTW.
*2.0′s resident pedant*
Iron Fist wrote:
And here I thought it just a generation or two of father/daughter reproduction.
And now for some humor
Explosions rock southern Lebanon village
By ASSOCIATED PRESS AND JPOST.COM STAFF
09/03/2010 14:47
Lebanese officials say blast may have been caused by an explosion at a Hizbullah weapons warehouse.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Explosions ripped through a building Friday in southern Lebanon that might have been used to store weapons by the militant group Hizbullah, Lebanese security officials said.
It was not clear whether there were any casualties from the blasts, which set off a large fire, the officials said. Rescue crews responded to the scene.
http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=186990
@ F:
Vice is nice, but incest is best!
[/Old Hippy Mantra]
Belatedly stopping by to give a shout out to Food Lion for his great work at using a chainsaw on the idiots over at little pink nerfballs a few nights ago.
Absolutely outstanding.
I read the play by play here the other night.
mfhorn wrote:
Do you use one ? Since we in Europe are now forced to do so I had to replace my bulbs with them. Beside the fact that most of them are preoduced in China where thousands of people became deadly ill because of the mercury, I use now instead of a 60 Watt bulb an energy saving bulb comparable to 120 Watt.
Energy saving bulbs are not only expensive they are also high toxic waste.
Conclusion: energy saving bulbs are neither energy saving nor environmental friendly and we are only forced to use them to fill the coffers of the state (VAT).
@ Guggi:
The light they produce is awful. I don’t like them one bit.
Urban Infidel wrote:
Quite concur.
I have a diesel Jeep Liberty. The engine is made by Detroit Diesel subsidiary V.M. Motori in Italy. Slightly larger version (2.8 vs 2.5 liter) of the same diesel used in London cabs. It gets nearly 30 mpg on the freeway. Forza Italia! I can even run biodiesel in it and make the greenweenies happy and give the Saudi Oil Ticks the finger at the same time.
Urban Infidel wrote:
It is dim and ominous looking. That is designed to demoralize us and make us think we are going blind.
Bagua wrote:
They probably save energy because they shine such an ugly light you want to turn it off as quickly as possible.
The twistybulb is the ultimate symbol of green totalitarian BS.
The Osprey wrote:
And don’t you need a hazmat team to clean up the poison if you break it?
The Twistybulb is Of The Devil™
Bagua wrote:
I refer to them as Gorebulbs.
The Osprey wrote:
I wonder how the Discovery Channel bomber felt about them. Didn’t that story get buried pretty quickly? If it were on the other hand, there would be calls for Beck and Palin’s heads on platters.
Urban Infidel wrote:
Therefore I use the so called “daylight energy saving bulbs” which don’t save any energy compared to the 60/80 Watt bulbs (and they are more expensive as ordinary “energy saving bulbs”).
hey ya’ll
how we all doing tonite?
an extra hey ya’ll to all the new posters around here
@ Guggi:
The linked article said ~60 mpg, which is approximately 100 km/4liters. That seemed a little high, but not astronomical; not knowing what kinds of econoboxes aren’t for sale in North America. I could imagine an underpowered and tiny car in Europe or Asia that can get that; 50 mpg isn’t uncommon in 4-cyl diesels. It’s certainly plausible.
Guggi wrote:
I use only incandescent lighting. Retrofitted my office with them and put the florescents in the garbage. I hate their glaring, flickering light.
@ rain of lead:
I guess we are all in a somber mood tonite. We got rid of all our bad vibes last night. lol
Hi Rain
Urban Infidel wrote:
I read that guy’s manifesto, it was obvious he was an LGF reader.
rain of lead wrote:
Hello my friend. I’m enjoying all the good people here.
@ snork:
VW TDI’s will get close to 50mpg on the freeway. 45 mpg out of a 1.8L Turbodiesel, IIRC. There’s a crossover between the TDI community and the small number of us in the States who were lucky enough to get a diesel Libby in the short time Jeep was selling them here, there’s a fair number of people on the LOST KJ website who own both.
snork wrote:
They based their study on a VW Golf.
Urban Infidel wrote:
Ethical eating is leading to anorexia among girls and increasingly boys.
Bad ideas are killing many more than climate change.
Oh. Snap.
In the if-a-white-guy-said-it department, a black oriented website called The Atlanta Post is featuring a piece by Yvette Carnell headlined, “Obama’s Achilles Heel: He’s Not African-American,” in which Carnell decides that Obama is failing because he isn’t really black enough to make it all work. Further Carnell asserts that Obama can’t convince African Americans that he is angry enough to be their president
the piece can really be boiled down into the premise that Obama isn’t militant enough for a real African-American to accept him. He isn’t “a bully,” and he doesn’t look to employ a “David and Goliath” style of governance Carnell says. This all means that American blacks can’t relate to him she posits.
*wow*
I….
I don’t know what to say
The IPCC/TERI Chief Con-man Rajendra Pachauri belongs in prison with Madoff.
Pachuari the Denier
- Climategate2009
The propaganda and lies promulgated by this vile man will quite possibly lead to millions of people in the third world dying of starvation, as food production is jeopardised by the eco-fascist nonsence.
BBL
Guggi wrote:
I really doesn’t matter whether the comparison is with a golf or something else; the question is whether that 25 km/l breakeven point is within reach, and it is.
Having said that, it’s close, and there are a lot of variables. We’re really not going to know with any certainty until a few tens of thousands of these electrics have been on the road for ten years.
The overarching issue here though is that incrementally, if you add one electric car to the grid, in most parts of the world, that car wil incrementally run on coal. Electrics are a necessary but not sufficient step away from fossil fuels. The rest of this numerical gamesmanship is just that.
rain of lead wrote:
I know what to say … bullshit!
@ rain of lead:
I know what CeeLo would say. LOL
@ Bagua:
I’ve only three of them left, but I hate them.
@ snowcrash:
I’d wish him the best with a F**K YOU! LOL
@ rain of lead:
They want Obama to be more like Hugo Chavez, ie, they want him to start throwing people like Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter etc in jail.
Obama already has all the network news spewing propaganda for him 24/7.
They just want Obama to take it a step further and go dictatorial.
If your fluorescents flicker, they’re either extremely old school, or defective. New ones don’t do that; they use solid state inverters that operate in the kilohertz range.
Of course, you Euros have 50 hz power that makes it worse than our 60 hz.
ghost707 wrote:
Thread in the kitty on that.
@ gulfloafer:
I am just stunned that a black writer would say this,(bullshit or not)
@ gulfloafer:
It’s really not the kind of thing I want to have stuck in my head today, but it is. Kinda catchy all purpose answer. LOL
what the hell…why are the comments shut off on the next thread?
(grabs the tool kit and climbs down the jeffery’s tube to engineering)
someone unhooked the inertial dampeners on the next thread, all fixed now.
To hell with econoboxes. Forgive me if I give a damn about staying alive in a crash more than I do about “carbon footprints”. Case in point: today, as I was stopped at a red light in my awesome ’95 Jeep Wrangler, a little old lady driving one of the newer plastic “green-rated” cars rear-ended me at full speed… She hit the Jeep so hard, she made it move forward… Results? For the Jeep, a bent metal bar that is a bumper, a very easy fix, taking into account the way it is attached and the way it is shaped… The front end of the unfortunate lady’s car– totally destroyed. FUBAR. GONE. So, I’ll stick with my gas-guzzling, carbon-belching hunk of metal, thankyouverymuch.
rain of lead wrote:
Yeah well that’s the liberal media doing it’s job on you. Unfortunately, identity politics based on skin color is still alive and well. That’s how she feels? Whatever, it’s still america she can say what she wants. However, her argument doesn’t support recent approval ratings among african-americans. Hence, I call bullshit on it.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/141725/blacks-whites-continue-differ-sharply-obama.aspx
@ PrincessNatasha:
my old beather 77 ford bronco (full size) lifted, and top off was rear ended by a little honda cvcc thingy…i felt the hit but couldnt see the car in my rear view mirror! he was partially UNDER my rear differential!
snowcrash wrote:
Right? It does have a catchy beat that sticks in your head all day.
coldwarrior wrote:
How’s your neck?/
coldwarrior wrote:
Yep, that poor lady wankered her car up something fierce. I feel bad for her because she is so elderly, but she was on the phone as she hit me, and was oblivious to anything around her. Thankfully, she was not hurt, nor was I.
PrincessNatasha wrote:
been my experiance that if thereis a wreck, someone is NOT paying attention
@ PrincessNatasha:
it is funny how mass relates to energy
Iron Fist wrote:
If that happens, you only dreamed that you woke up, you aren’t actually awake. When the alarm clock actually rings, you will remember that you have a cat and not a dog, that there is no beer in the house, and that you want some COFFEE.
When we all wake up from this, we will realize that we don’t want Muslims on American soil, in any capacity, military or otherwise.
rain of lead wrote:
In the vast majority of cases, this is true. In addition, the person(s) not paying attention is/are most likely going faster than they realize.
chickadee wrote:
You are correct.
Meanwhile, people who actually LIVE up north say there are more polar bears than ever, which is no surprise, considering the restrictions on hunting them. There are, however, no restrictions on polar bears hunting people.