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Politics : The Castle -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: tejek who wrote (4512)3/2/2005 8:38:12 PM
From: TimF  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 7936
 
I don't have the article but I read somewhere that if we went to all hybrid cars in the next ten years, we would meet the requirements of Kyoto.

1 - Its seems to be a static analysis. Our production of CO2 increases and it isn't all from cars. Getting rid of the current cars might get us below the limit but we are supposed to stay below the limit which means eliminating future growth in CO2 which will have an impact.

2 - The batteries in hybrid cars do have an environmental impact and would get worse if we replaced all cars with hybrids or straight electrics.

3 - It isn't reasonable to expect that even all new cars in the next 10 years are hybrids. They will become more common but its almost impossible to get 100% by then.

4 - There is some evidence that the gas mileage gains from hybrids may be slightly exaggerated by the standard figures, if so they would burn a bit more gas and produce bit more CO2 than the analysis that you talked about may have factored in.

5 - We don't get rid of all cars every 10 years. My car is 10 years old and that isn't a rare thing. If you want to accelerate the replacement schedule it will be expensive. Not as expensive as some of the figures I have posted, but it won't be the total of all the costs. (See point number 1 again)

6 - Since Kyoto excludes developing economies CO2 production will continue to rise anyway. If you do add the developing economies in than the cost figures go way up and a big part of the costs are born by people in countries that aren't very wealthy.

Tim