Green Lies and Market Truths

The sine qua non of political rhetoric is narrow context. Defining the parameters of an issue insure that the argument occurs within its confines and which ever side gets to set the boundries, is in effect choosing advantageous grounds.
"Environmentalists" certainly do not want you to know the following inconvenient fact:Spinella spent two years on the most comprehensive study to date  dubbed "Dust to Dust" -- collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a car from the initial conception to scrappage. He even included in the study such minutia as plant-to-dealer fuel costs of each vehicle, employee driving distances, and electricity usage per pound of material. All this data was then boiled down to an "energy cost per mile" figure for each car (see here and here).

Comparing this data, the study concludes that overall hybrids cost more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. But even more surprising, smaller hybrids' energy costs are greater than many large, non-hybrid SUVs.
For instance, the dust-to-dust energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile. This is quite a bit more than the $1.949 per mile that the elephantine Hummer costs. The energy cots of SUVs such as the Tahoe, Escalade, and Navigator are similarly far less than the Civic hybrid.
As for Ford cars, a Ford Escape hybrid costs $3.2 per mile about a third more than the regular Escape. But on the whole, ironically enough, the dust-to-dust costs of many of the Ford non-hybrids Fusion, Milan, Zephyr  are not only lower than comparable Japanese hybrids  Prius, Accord -- but also non-hybrids  Seville, Civic.
Spinella's finding that a Hummer on the whole consumes less energy than a hybrid than even some smaller hybrids and non-hybrids has infuriated environmentalists. And on its face it does seem implausible that a gas-guzzling monster like a Hummer that employs several times more raw material than a little Prius' could be so much less energy-intensive. But by and large the dust-to-dust energy costs in Spinella's study correlate with the fanciness of the car  not its size or fuel economy -- with the Rolls Royces and Bentleys consuming gobs of energy and Mazda 3s, Saturns and Taurus consuming relatively minuscule amounts.
As for Hummers, Spinella explains, the life of these cars averaged across various models is over 300,000 miles. By contrast, Prius' life according to Toyota's own numbers  is 100,000 miles. Furthermore, Hummer is a far less sophisticated vehicle. Its engine obviously does not have an electric and gas component as a hybrid's does so it takes much less time and energy to manufacture. What's more, its main raw ingredient is low-cost steel, not the exotic light-weights that are exceedingly difficult to make  and dispose. But the biggest reason why a Hummer's energy use is so low is that it shares many components with other vehicles and therefore its design and development energy costs are spread across many cars.

Save the world, drive a Hummer.
By all means read the whole thing--a wonderfully insightful article, but consider the implication for public decision making. The article discusses the "political decision" of Bill Ford to commit his company to building a whole bunch of hybrids, even as the market is saying get lost. This is the essence of socialism, even the soft socialism of the Democrat party, which promulgates the view that their judgment is at very least, "morally superior" to that of the market.
The numbers don't lie--your Hollywood Prius set is actually degrading the environment at a far greater rate than everyone else, but of course, that's why they are called limousine liberals.
UPDATE: Since I keep referring to this post and its keeps generating cognitive dissonance among left-wing pseudo-environmentalists, I decided to bump it to a current posting and add some additional reference material. The best way to fight lies is with information.
The Watt displays the actual per mile energy cost of various cars, both hybrid and non-hybrid. Even the least-cost hybrid, the Honda Insight, is considerably more expensive at about $2.95 per mile, than the industry average of $2.25 cents per mile. What's particularly striking is how the Hummer H3 is considerably cheaper than even conventional "economy" cars like the Honda Civic and Accord. If you really want to be environmentally friendly, then you need to go with a much smaller car, like the Ford Focus or the Toyota Echo--or ride a bike.

Source: http://www.uncorrelated.com/2007/08/green_lies_and_market_truths.html