Environmental Effects on Hybrid Cars
Regardless of all the press related to hybrid cars, there are several areas where these cars create as much environmental concern as fossil-fuel vehicles.
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Utility Charging Concerns
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Plugging the car into a local outlet will produce additional loads on the local utility grid. This means the utilities will need more power. And the more power people need, the more chance for additional coal-fired facility development.
Hybrids Are Hybrid
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The more hybrids there are on the road, the more catalytic converters there are going to be, and these components will continue to produce the same harmful byproducts.
Batteries
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The more hybrids on the road, the more batteries will be needed. These components are based on nickel-metal hydrides. As a result, more mining will be needed to keep up with supply chain requirements, and mining facilities create significant pollution.
More Mining
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Hybrids need lots of copper to allow manufacturers to build electrical windings for electrical motors. Copper mine processing is just as threatening as nickel mine processing in terms of environmental concerns.
Gas Mileage And Reality
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There is a belief driving a hybrid will use less gas, and this is not so. Federal mileage metrics are always "best" measures, not the kind of practical results that can be expected when driving on a typical road, in a typical town, operating on a typical personal maintenance program.
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Comments
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Suzanne Carlson
Jan 15, 2011
This is why socialistic and communist governments and countries want to push Climate Change legislation like the Kyoto Treaty, and tax industrial carbon output, or "footprints". What better way to control every aspect of life (i.e., human consumption) than to control energy creation, transmission, distribution and usage of "something better for the environment than petroleum-based products"--all in the name of "saving the planet". Nearly every industry contributes to making energy; at least all those industries spoken of in this article. Thus, by taxing and regulating every industry that contributes to generating electricity--whether it's from a coal-fired, natural gas or nuclear power plant--electricity is really, not any better than petroleum. The only thing hybrid cars and other "green" energy will do is shift the money from many, to few--namely, government, and thereby giving...
