The Hybrid’s Dirty Little Secret: Part 1

Published by Green by Design under Sustainability, Transportation

Hurting the environment more than a Hummer?

In the realm of Motor Vehicles, there’s been an ongoing struggle between cars like the Prius and cars like the Hummer. Clearly on opposite sides of the spectrum, these two vehicles are often viewed as vehicular good and evil. This is especially true amidst massive waves of Greenwashing, with the media constantly playing up benefits of the Prius and the downsides of the Hummer.

Turns out, neither one is the good guy in this story.

But every Good Guy has a secret, and as it turns out, the Prius is no exception.

The Toyota Prius was introduced in North America in 2001, and many are getting to the point where their battery packs need some serious service work.

Turns out, replacing these battery packs involves more than your soon-to-be hurting wallet (replacing the pack can cost anywhere from $3000-$6000). These nickel metal hybrid batteries are affecting the environment in a way that may offset the hybrid’s environmental benefits.

Prius owners need to look at their vehicle and ask: How "green" is it?

A lot of nickel is required to replace and build these batteries. Much of this nickel is extracted from Northern Canada, where it is then shipped to China, Japan, and finally back to the US. All of this travel, for the sake of one battery pack, wastes an incredible amount of fuel.

The downfall of the hybrid

Rinse and repeat every 5-6 years…

And that’s just the batteries. Dig around a little, and you’ll see that even before you drive it off the lot, a hybrid has done more environmental damage than any conventional car, including the berated Hummer. (Although, some will disagree.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking hybrids, they do make sense-especially on a large scale: such as city buses that spend all their time in stop-and-go traffic.

But, it’s important to recognize how “green” these cars truly are. Hybrids are by no means the last word on greenness.

For now, the only real solution is the simplest one: Driving less. A lot less.

9 Responses to “The Hybrid’s Dirty Little Secret: Part 1”

John Brown says:

July 1, 2009 at 2:56 pm

I have to take exception to the connection you make betwen the mess at Sudbury and the Prius.

I visited Sudbury Ontario in 1970 and the hills were already scrubbed bare from years of nickel production. True the Prius may have accelerated world nickel demand, but the photos you have and the general description of Sudbury were accurate nearly 40 years ago.

I also see that you neglected to mention how much of the nickel from the Prius batteries is recovered for recycling.

You also failed to mention the clean buring characteristics of the Prius’ atkinson cycle engine. It is a major contributor to the low emissions generated by a Prius.

Chris Demorro’s article to which you refer is deficient in the same tilted manor.

Ciao,

jb

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Vanessa Brunner says:

July 1, 2009 at 3:25 pm

Thanks John. I appreciate your feedback. The article itself is definitely tilted, but part of that is for the sake of being controversial. I want the article to start a conversation on this topic, and most importantly, to get people thinking!

And thanks for your comments on the Sudbury mine. It’s an important correction. However, my main point wasn’t so much about the mine itself, as the fact that the nickel is shipped all around the world before it is made into a battery and placed into a Prius. That wastes an enormous amount of energy.

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Nayroll Io says:

July 1, 2009 at 4:16 pm

This is an old babbler. See what Pablo said: http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/this-week-david.php

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eric L says:

July 1, 2009 at 5:44 pm

Starting a public conversation about the lifecycle of a product is important, but your argument is a poor one. In fact, I’m sure what your article was targeting other than fueling people’s poorly researched arguments for justifying big cars. In my lectures someone brings up the Prius battery question almost every time.

I encourage you to do a little more research before giving ignorant people verbal ammunition to spray. You are totally knocking Prius’ and with poorly supported articles that are derided as inaccurate. You cite an article from the Central Connecticut Recorder in March of 2007 by a STAFF WRITER as your reference? Please.

A few material thoughts:

Recycling the Battery:
Nickel is a valuable metal. Prius’ contain 32 pounds of Nickel in their battery.
Nickel runs $7.26 a pound at the moment. The batteries are NON toxic and are not hard to recycle as a result (unlike cadmium). http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html#battery. That’s $232 worth of metal. It will be recaptured and repurposed at that kind of value, just as Toyota and Honda say they do. In fact, they offer a $200 bounty on the batteries with a phone number stuck right on them.

Mileage and Weights:
Prius taxi cabs are now coming in 300,000 miles on the original battery packs. The Recorder article says Prius only live 100k. Google “used Prius’” to debunk that they die and need new batteries. Furthermore, the Prius’ curb weight is 2765 lb. A Hummer H2 weighs 6400 LB. That is all metal that must be sources from steel mills and mined across the world. You can look up the Lifecycle data for the next article.

Transport:
The shipping of 1000 tons of nickel is minor in terms of environmental impacts. In fact, ocean transport is the most efficient means of moving goods in the world. Most container ships now carry “approximately equivalent to 35 100-car double-stack intermodal freight trains) on a voyage.” Ocean transport is an excellent way to move materials long distances efficiently.

Nickel Production:
2004 saw 1,206,900 tons of Primary Nickel production in the world, and this does not even include Secondary (recycled) nickel in the tonnage. 1000 tons for a year’s Prius’ production is a rather small quantity. This can be taken that one of the primary users of nickel is Stainless Steel production. Perhaps folks can begin talking about killing the planet with their restaurant prep stations first.
http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink/fetch/2000/2122/687806/ISO_TC_155__Nickel_and_nickel_alloys_.pdf?nodeid=1029853&vernum=0

Driving Less:
Large portions of the US have poor urban planning that people drive great distances. This will change as energy prices rise, urban communities rebuild, and sprawl is curtailed. I think many people would like to drive less, but options are often difficult and unavailable. The fact that we only produce ~35% of our oil from domestic sources is a big deal. 10mpg vs. 50mpg is a big deal. If you are worried about dirty little secrets, perhaps you should consider how much energy two wars burn.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/basics/quickoil.html

Again, please be CAREFUL when you say stuff like this. The conversation is a worthwhile one, but only when it adds value to the discussion.

I look forward to Part II.

~EL

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Gil Friend says:

July 2, 2009 at 12:12 am

Embodied energy and life cycle impact are important questions to ask. But such a stunningly bad article — based on a two-year old college newspaper article that cites controversial research that the research firm has since updated* — is not the way to answer it. Very disappointed in you, greenbydesign.

*See http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=CNW+Marketing+Dust+to+Dust&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

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Dane Chobanian says:

July 2, 2009 at 3:17 am

my name is dane chobanian of San Diego, CA. I found your rebuttal both very interesting and extremely relieving. I hate to leave a pointless comment, but i must ask you a few questions. You spoke about lecture. Are you a college professor? and if so, in what subject? this is the direction i wish to take my life in, but im not sure of:

the NAME of this subject as a collegiate subject

where i can get a hold of academic sources on such topics instead of sensationalist news sources

what corresponding subjects to study.

As i have concluded via my own research, it appears to be some kind of mixture of geology, chemical engineering, and a touch of world economics. I hope to become an architect on the forefront of developing simple, cheap buildings that can maximally reduce our carbon footprints. In hopes that the author of this response should come back and review his work, if you have any tips or any sources that you could communicate to me, I would be extremely appreciative. my email is smalltimeDrake@gmail.com. if you do email me, use a subject that is obvious so that i dont dimiss it as spam. thank you.

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Aaron Campbell says:

July 2, 2009 at 1:48 pm

Haven’t seen Vanessa Brunner’s response to Eric L’s eloquent rebuttal to this thinly researched blog post masquerading as a news article. What say you to his science?

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Aaron Campbell says:

July 2, 2009 at 1:50 pm

PS: does this blog post get people thinking *properly* or does it propagate the Prius v Hummer myth?

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Martijn Vos says:

July 6, 2009 at 5:34 am

There is no “ongoing struggle between the Prius and the Hummer”, this is not starting a conversation on a constroversial topic, it is simply repeating a stupid but popular lie from the anti-environmental lobby. I believe Rush Limbaugh was one of the first people to pick this up, and he’s not exactly known for his care for the environment.

For a more thorough rebuttal of this insidious lie, read http://www.slate.com/id/2186786/pagenum/all/#p2

Summary of that article: A Hummer contains more nickel than a Prius. A Prius does take more energy to produce than a normal production car (but still way less than a Hummer), but it easily makes up for the difference through fuel savings throughout its lifetime.

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