Prius Does More Environmental Damage Than a Hummer?

[Lipp]

Unfortunately the cultivated land of agriculture is, compared to a forest, inefficient at harnessing and storing CO2, and what is stored is largely lost when harvested.
They do have that thing about "methane from cows", but while it is notable it's not really a big deal (large amounts, but only remains for a short time in the atmosphere if Im not mistaken), and as Mis mentioned the mechanization (transport, airplane spraying, processing factories, harvesting machinery), coupled with intensive farming methods, is a fair chunk of it. Who knows what the herbicides and pesticides do.


Just to add to the whole Prius thing, I do think that even if it's not über-great (still way ahead of american counterparts though) it's a nice display that people actually bother, hence its success. I wont be getting a car for a few more years as its an unnecessary expense, but a definite plus for a hybrid/electric car is also that it doesn't have to suffer from fluctuating gas prices - something that is pretty inevitable and less likely to happen as much for electricity pricing. The 5-year offset time is based on current prices and is still a pretty decent trade-off for the first truly successful hybrid. Of course gas cars will be more cost-efficient to begin with, they've got quite a few decades behind them.


As for Nuclear Power, I'm still skeptical. Here's a read in favour of it though if you're interested.
[url]http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclear-faq.html[/url]
I'd be more inclined if the U.S would develop reprocessing plants and "breeder" reactors, but at least that article seemed to settle the issue of a 100-year uranium supply. The last thing we ought to aim to do is redo this whole thing in another 100 years.Do it once, do it right.

Then again, that supply is disputed by Monash right here in Melbourne, since it only applies to high-quality uranium deposits which require less to extract than the "billions of years of supply available" deposits.
[url]http://www.livescience.com/technology/080422-uranium-supply.html[/url]

[Illusional]

as long as cars don't run off beer, then the world will be fine. or atleast my world will be.

raverboy