This is a very good point. One I pondered the other day. "should I
sell my 04 Accord? What about energy used to make a new car?"

Well, the Honda works fine, and would be used by someone else. And
likely I'd buy used for my DD. (like a TDI to run on bio blend) But if
I went hybrid or electric, I'd buy new.

Regardless, energy/material was needed to make any new car I would
purchase. So....

As has been pointed out, one could simply reduce how often they drive.
If I drove to work half the time, I'd be doing far more good, IMHO,
than simply selling my car and buying a new hybrid/electric.

No, I haven't crunched numbers, but from the standpoint of reducing
the amount I drive by half, the efficiency of my car would, in effect,
double. i.e. it gets say 30M/imp gallon. By using it half the time,
that would be 60. Somewhat less than a Prius. (Although real world
driving would likely yield less than the advertised 71 MGP/City) I
wouldn't be shifting my "problem" to someone else, and in theory, I
wouldn't be using resources/energy to have another Prius made.

Anyway.....

One really useful and simple solution is to simply drive less if feasible.

(Although not for everyone. i.e. I carry musical instruments....
sometimes a *TUBA*.... to work)

Neil.

--
Neil Nicholson. 1981 Air Cooled Westfalia.

http://web.mac.com/tubaneil

On 6/26/07, Ryan Miller <rmiller@azteca.com> wrote:
> All of our vanagons are green. Simply by keeping them in good running order
> (even if they don't get 30mpg) or by upgrading our engines to cleaner more
> fuel efficient engines we are doing more than the person who dumps their
> Hummer for a Prius. Why? Because one thing many people fail to recognize is
> the cost (aka footprint) of production. An insanely huge amount of energy
> and resources goes into producing one car. This production process also
> produces a huge amount of waste and pollution, from the excess paint to the
> toxic chemicals that are needed to clean sensitive computer processing
> parts. By dumping one vehicle for another you haven't retired the first.
> It's still out there polluting, just by someone else, and now one more car
> has been placed on the road.
>
> On a personal note, I have 3 cars (all bought used) and ride my bike to work
> most days. So, I've effectively taken at least 2 cars off the road at any
> given time. Shouldn't I get some sort of tax break? ;)
>
> Ryan
> '82 camper van 'Beethoven'
> '96 Subaru Legacy
> '72 Super Beetle convertible
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com] On Behalf Of
> Karl Mullendore
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 9:41 AM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: What is it with the US? (No real van content)
>
> That story paints a rather limited view of what's possible regarding
> biodiesel. There are many more productive 'crops' like algae for biodiesel.
> Yields of 1000 gallons per acre are possible.
>
> What's needed is an awareness of how much WASTE we, the US population, are
> responsible for. If everyone used half the fuel (or less) we would likely
> not have to concern ourselves so much with this subject. I'm doing my part
> best I can...I used approximately 130 gallons in my car in the past year,
> about 50 percent of that was commercially refined recycled-fryer oil
> biodiesel. I'd like to decrease that usage figure even further.
>
>
> >While recycling fryer oil from the local fast food might be "green,"
> >large scale biodiesel (or ethanol) production is not.
> >http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/8353
>