What is the damage to the environment from making a new car? How many carbon offsets (to use the current way of dealing with guilt) would someone need to purchase to offset the manufacture of a new car?
I have an SUV. I know that I can calculate the excess number of gallons of gas my truck uses in a given year vs. driving a more efficient vehicle. However, there is also a cost to the environment of MAKING that more efficient vehicle. Where is the break even point?
If my truck “wastes” 100 gallons a year, and it takes the equivalent of 1,000 gallons to make a new car - it SEEMS that it is better for the environment for me to keep my truck (ignoring the fact that I would not have my truck destroyed and would instead just sell it and it would remain on the streets).
I can’t give you things like carbon offsets, but, in general, it is better for the environment if you replace your truck with a used car that gets better gas mileage than your truck.
The reason for this is that any environmental damage done by the creation of the car has already been done, and buying a new car increases the amount of environmental damage. While people aren’t discussing it much right now, we’re rapidly approaching the point where damage from all forms of pollution is becoming a serious concern.
Wow! What a question. Making a car touches every aspect of our economy. How far back do you really want to go? To the steel mills? To the iron mines? Or maybe just the part of the process where they install the seats and put on the wheels?
Not trying to be snarky at all – but it really and truly is a complex question.
I guess I would start at the Auto plant, rather than go all the way to the raw materials suppliers.
Though a truly accurate answer would incorporate the entire supply chain.
If everyone drove their cars for one additional year, cutting the sales of cars by ~10%, how much of a net benefit to the environment would that be? Or would it be a net cost because we are driving older cars with less efficient emissions systems, etc.
This was partially triggered by discussions of how solar panels, while making energy, cost a lot to produce. Is there a net benefit to the environment?
The bar graph in Fig. 1 there shows the CO2-emissions impact of manufacturing and using various types of cars. According to that, the environmental hit from manufacturing a conventional (gasoline-powered) car is about 15% of the vehicle’s total environmental impact. So yeah, buying a (fairly new and clean, i.e., low-emissions) used car saves considerable eco-ouchies over buying a brand new one.
On the other hand, a hybrid vehicle has almost the same manufacturing eco-impact as a conventional one, but its total eco-impact—manufacturing and use combined—is only somewhere between half and two-thirds as big.
So buying a used (not too old) conventional car is good for the environment, but apparently buying a new hybrid is even better overall.
The other half of the equation is what happens to your car or SUV when you replace it? If someone else continues to drive it, then is that any better than you continuing to drive it? I want to get a new hybrid vehicle, but I’ve got an older car that is still driveable, so I’ll continue to drive it until it’s totaled or dies completely. (In the meantime, I try to keep it tuned up so as to minimize the pollution.)
I aksed a similar question a couple of years ago (although I phrased it somewhat poorly) which led to a bit of a debate. From that thread, here is the estimated environmental cost of
one car. (BTW, I’m still driving the 88 Cherokee mentioned in the thread although I just replaced the catlytic converter this year so it’s probalby slightly less noxious than it was…)
The obvious problem with that study is whether the 100,000 mile expected lifespan of a Prius is unrealistically low (and whether the 300,000 mile expected lifespan of a Hummer is unrealistically high). Also, does the study measure the environmental impact of a Prius vs a Hummer?
It doesn’t seem to explain why the Hummer is expected to last 300,000 miles, and the Prius only 100,000 miles. Do manufacturers really state “expected life” for their vehicles?
I don’t know if manufacturers publicly state their estimated lifespans for vehicles, but you can be certain that they do have those estimates, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to offer warranties on their vehicles.
In this thread, I link to discussions about hybrids, and some of the issues surrounding them. 100K miles for a hybrid is, I’ll WAG, probably the lifespan of the battery pack (though vibration may damage some of the wiring at this point). 300K miles for a diesel Hummer doesn’t seem unreasonable to me, since diesel engines tend to have a long lifespan.
(bolding mine)How is ‘scrapping’ defined? Is it the number of cars that actually go to the crusher, or is it the number of cars taken to scrapyards each year? Cars can sit for years in a scrapyard before they’re ever hauled off and crushed Additionally, the melting down of the cars (which is the highest energy cost) is increasingly not done in the US, but in China.