Green monkeys
Posted by Michael Harvey at 2:20PM on Tuesday 16 January, 2007 16 Comments
I've heard it said that one of the key drivers in the West's urge to go green is that the European and the enlightened American middle classes just love having something to beat themselves up over.
We can't help but feel uncomfortable every time the news networks transport us to Darfur or Baghdad or Zimbabwe. And the more we have, the more uncomfortable we feel.
Hence, I assume, the smart residents of Richmond in Surrey backing their councillors in over-charging owners of gas-guzzlers to park outside their own homes. There are few places where the residents have quite so much as they do in Richmond, and few places so right-on, middle class.
Except maybe BBC News. Now believe me, I get dewy-eyed when it comes to talking about the greater good of the BBC and get authentic withdrawal symptoms when my days don't start with Today programme (come on, I am well into my 40s).
But what is it with BBC News and cars? Where does all that gold-standard balanced reporting go - the kind of commitment to the truth and to neutrality that makes people risk their lives to talk to BBC News correspondents and the Chinese so afraid - when confronted with a car story?
Especially when it's an environmental story. Cars no longer seem to be bête du jour of the BBC News teams. They are these days more likely to sequence one of Stelios's orange 737s than an SUV's tailpipe after an image of the ice cap falling apart, but appropriate scepticism is put on hold when confronted with the latest 'car that's going to save the world'.
It's come up a couple of times recently, with the Elise-based, Silicon Valley car the Tesla, and with General Motors' Volt project. On both occasions, the PR line was swallowed, ingested and regurgitated complete. So a Tesla will do 250 miles on a couple of hours charge. Yeah, and my mobile phone really does have 16 hours talk time.
Online, the BBC admitted the Chevy Volt didn't yet have batteries that will deliver the slightly more realistic 40-mile range. On TV it didn't.
And it matters. It's lack of scepticism that's seen the Toyota Prius crowned the world's most environmentally sensitive car and nobody left pondering the impact of that long boat journey from Japan, or the impact of the unique facility erected to build it, or what happens to that bloody great big battery pack when it's shot...
Please don't think I don't care. I really do. It really is a very important debate. It's one that we're going to address quite seriously in the magazine very soon. And I promise, we'll give you both sides of the story.
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16 Comments for "Green monkeys"
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I totally agree, if you want to be ecological don't buy a Prius. Walk, or ride a bike, or shock horror, buy a Fiesta.
If you believe electric cars are the way to go, er where do you think the leccy comes from?
The only truly green technology so far is power cells, and they're not ready. Also don't you have to use electricity to produce hydrogen?
Basically if you feel a twinge in your conscience, get a car with a small petrol, or a small diesel engine, not a useless PR folly...
Standard petrol and diesel engines are roughly 45% efficient, whilst an electric motor is 90% efficient. (No conspiracy theories here, just simple thermodynamics). However, a power-station, burning fossil fuels, is usually 30% efficient. And then you have to factor in losses in the transmission of electricity: the pesky P = I squared x R that is lost as heat in the transmission lines.
So, as long as electric cars have to be recharged from the current power stations they are not a viable solution. First we, as a society, must invest into alternative sources of energy for our large, fixed, power generating facilities (nuclear, solar...) and THEN we can think of applying the same reasoning to our little runabouts.
Spot ON. I would also add - when do we see any of the reports damn the government for not backing "green" vehicles as other governments do, e.g., Sweden and its leaders. Other technology is available in the interim period before the all saving magic formula is produced what ever it may be. Just think how many vehicles would be purchased if Bi-Ethanol was widely available with realistic tax breaks.
However, I will not hold my breath because if this was the case it would blow an hole the size of America in our government's taxation policy; they can only make money while they can tax petrol for not being "green".
By the way, I drive a Passat 2.0TDi which gives me around 45-50MPG with all the space I require for my job, and I have just bought a 1.1l Panda for the wife for the school run - similar MPG just running around and costs a good deal less than a Prius.
The problem with the environmental movement is precisely that it is merely another capitalist endeavour to appeal to desires for the sake of our wallets. The green revolution can't be motivated by liberal guilt, but rather needs to be a radical turning-around in which we will all reorganize our priorities. We absolutely need to stop moralizing and decrying those who want (and can afford) to drive super cars, big SUVs and the like. Rather, driving said vehicles needs to reflect the real cost they put on society.
If we want to reduce world carbon emmisions, we need to put, effectivly, a tax on it, so we will pay (probably indirectly through a crap trading scheme) for the carbon we emit.
What's more, if Americans (I'm not certain about the British here) had to pay a "security tax" on every gallon of fuel they bought in proportion to how much military spending is required to maintain the cheapness of that fuel no one but the rich and famous could afford to drive.
James May articulated this quite well in an episode I believe, where he said something like, "Yes I know other cars are cheaper - but if you want cheap take the train. I choose to spend my money on petrol." People absolutely should have the right to spend their money on petrol, but the cost of that petrol needs to reflect a total view of its cost.
These green hippies - they believe they're saving the enviroment, but think about it. Look at the stats, the enviroment is also killing itself. Cows do more damage than cars. Volcanoes do mare damage in one eruption than a year's worth of SUV driving. I do care, but I thought of something. Vegetarians - save the enviroment, eat a beefburger.
I agree totally. The drive (pun intended) to make everybody green and use cars such as the Prius is likely to cause more damage then the pollution created by the 'gas guzzlers' already in production.
The pollution created by the factory in manufacturing a single Prius is probably more then the pollution that will be put out by my old banger (MK1 MR2) in its entire lifetime.
Once you add in the environmental disposal costs of the battery packs, the environmental disposal costs of my old car and all the background transporting costs, I consider myself to be doing more for the environment by NOT buying a new car and sticking with my banger that still yields up to 39mpg.
If they truly cared about the environment they would be pushing for us not to buy new cars and to use what we already have and keep these running.I think I listened to the same newsreader on 'Today' as you did yesterday and was not surprised at how slanted and 'spun' the comment was. BBC news makes Alistair Campbell look like an amateur!
I think the comment was 'gas guzzlers, Jaguars & Mercedes'. Whoever wrote that line in BBC News should be immediately sacked. Nothing like being fingered by the BBC as a 'planet killer' over a cup of tea at 7:00 in the morning if you're unlucky enough to drive an A160 TDI.
Why do they seem unable to refer to the emissions level banding?
And another thing! - Diesel was supposed to be environmentally preferred over petrol and was cheaper when first introduced, but why is it now taxed higher than petrol? Wouldn't be anything to do with the fact that diesel cars generally get more mpg so Brown would loose out on more tax? Or that with the change in company car tax rules to emissions bands (hence the increase in popularity of Diesel cars) Brown gets more tax.
The whole 'green' issue has been a godsend to Brown to slip in more tax collection but nobody in Government opposition seems to be awake.
Fascinating stuff. In reference to the mention of parking charges for "gas guzzlers" being increased to further alienate drivers of larger engined cars...surely increasing the cost of parking is ridiculous; when parked a Supercharged Range Rover is using precisely the same amount of fuel as a Prius... nada!
Drivers of less enconomical vehicles are penalised already because they have to buy more heavily taxed fuel. It simply costs more to run a high performance car or 4x4, the more you use it the more it costs, it regulates itself.
I drive a Land Rover Defender and endure many comments relating to it's lack of fuel efficiency and greenenss. I drive less than 5000 miles a year in it and therefore do far less damage to the environment than a peson driving 15000 miles a year in a small hatchback.
The desire to punish people for their lifestyle aspirations seems to me to be motivated by the 'having' of something when surely it should be directed at the 'using'. This seems to indicate the real motiavtion to alienate drivers of large engined vehicles...jealousy!
Nuclear energy providing power to the grid during peak hours and providing power for Hydrogen creation during off-peak hours is the "greenest" solution i am aware of.
finally somebody has been sensible enough to point out the severe downsides to the prius that most people oversee because of thier very short sighted views. there is still a long way to got with traditional ic engines and powertrains to reduce emissions and fuel consumption, and jumping on the hybrid bandwagon can only harm that.
The BBC appears to be hell-bent on stifling any actual debate concerning the alleged human induced climate change, constantly regurgitating the strident cries of the doomsayers without any attempt to present a balanced view.
When did they last present a report detailing the findings of one of the majority of atmospheric scientists (who are actually qualified to speak on the matter) who oppose the view of imminent global climate catastrophe?
I have also yet to see an article presented by the BBC to explain how we are also causing the indications of global warming on Mars and Triton discovered by recent space probes - perhaps its because it is all being caused by natural fluctuations in the Sun's output, and not by our emissions?
At the end of the day, if the Governments around the world really believed in our emissions causing global warming, then they would be building nuclear power stations as fast as possible to replace fossil fuel powered ones (incidentally, a coal fired power station actually produces more radioactive waste than a nuclear station of similar output, thanks to the trace elements of uranium and thorium found in coal).
In my opinion a viable alternative to the present day situation is to have the major power stations running on Nuclear, Wind, Solar or Natural Gas. Since these are all inter-linked peaks in one type (ex solar) can offset dips in the other (ex wind). Battery systems can be used to store excess energy, or it can be used to produce Hydrogen as Tom said.
With that taken care of, global C02 emissions would be curtailed enough to allow cars to still run on efficient petrol or diesel engines, with the possibility of switching to hydrogen-burning (as BMW is experimenting) in the future. It makes much more sense than the half-baked ideas being thrown at us by opportunistic lobby groups.
The goverment are so keen to get everyone to go green but they don't help anyone with this. Organic food is more expensive, diesel is more expensive. An electic car is more expensive, a green house is more expensive. Hey Gordon we're not all rich you know. So Jag's are gas guzzlers eh, doesn't John Prescott have 2 of them (or he certainly used to)? Guess it a case of do what we say and not what we do!
Ah gentlemen the "leccy" for the Prius does not come from "current power stations",it comes from regenerative breaking (see the new BMW 1 series).Those brilliant Japanese will always lead in automotive engineering.The whole "plug electric cars into the house for recharging" is early 90s.If you want to discuss "green cars" etc please be informed.
Totally agree as well! BBC seems to be hyping all this green stuff more and more, or at least the news and especially newsnight do that, there is not one night without their bloody ethical man and moaning about cars being the fault of everything. I was watching German TV last week and they seem to be going mad as well, the want to have a speed limit on the autobahns! In my home country Holland the green party just got a good hiding with only getting 7 seats in parliament, rightly so!
Err... Lunchy, I hope that you're being sarcastic on purpose. The electricity for the Prius doesn't come from the regenerative braking system, it comes from the IC engine. The amount given by the regenerative braking is minuscule by comparison.