Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Krauthammer on torture
An essay by Charles Krauthammer regarding the debate over torture. An interesting read, and one with many points that I'm not sure I can refute. I'm waiting to see Sullivan's response as well.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
LCA
Check out Toyota's Life Cycle Analysis data for the Prius here. The site is in Japanese, but some more insight can be gained from using Google's translator. Not surprisingly, the Prius seems to come out ahead (if I'm reading things correctly). Imagine that, Toyota puts positive environmental data about the Prius on their website. Also, the Toyota data is discussed on Autoblog here, though I have found the commenter who introduces the data to be militantly pro-hybrid. Perhaps the commenter is militant for a good reason, and perhaps Toyota is right. But an impartial third party study is a requirement for me to fully lose my skepticism.
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
People for the American Way
Read.
Ok, so "protecting traditional values" MAY be a euphemism for laws with which I don't agree. But other than that, Paul has a point.
Ok, so "protecting traditional values" MAY be a euphemism for laws with which I don't agree. But other than that, Paul has a point.
My Christian Brothers and Sisters
Here's an article showing Christians worshiping despite some pretty intense persecution. Their faith and love of God is quite amazing, and it is clear from this prominent news article that it has caught the attention of many people. Pray for them, and pray that their faith and love would speak to many, even their persecutors.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Bush can be (is?) an idiot
What is he thinking? A measure that passes by a huge margin in the Senate, is supported by a majority of the electorate, and is, by the way, simply calling the US to abide by common norms of decency and morality should be vetoed? Apparently, in the world of Bush this is how things work. The ban on torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners has already been threatened with a veto should it make it through the House, and its prospects of doing even that are looking grim as well. While I applaud Bush for taking the fight to the terrorists and having the backbone to take on a necessary, but unpopular at the moment, war, I can't agree with his choice to use torture and other almost-torture techniques to wage said war. The administration claims to need these tactics in certain cases to prevent imminent attacks, but I expect my elected leaders, the supposed cream of the crop of our country, to be better than that. I want the job done, and I want it done right. If Bush can't protect our country without using torture, he should find someone who can. It's not like they don't exist. Though apparently, they don't exist in the White House.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
The numbers
I ran some simple numbers as a way to illustrate my point below, that hybrids probably aren't as useful as they're made out to be. Here, I want to illustrate the economic differences between hybrid and non-hybrid cars. I chose the Honda Civic and Honda Civic Hybrid to compare since they are about as close to each other, minus the drivetrain, as can be. So, here we go.
First, the hybrid. Base price $21,850. This includes all kinds of good stuff like side air bags, abs, cc, ac with climate control, a CD player and a continuously variable transmission. All in all, this car is pretty well equipped. The EPA mileage estimate is 49/51 city/highway.
The non-hybrid. Here things get a little tricky. The hybrid is sold as one trim level only (with a nav option), so we have to pick the corresponding non-hybrid trim level. However, if you are interested in saving money, you may not care for all the fancy tidbits and would go with a more lowly Civic. So, here I have compared the uplevel EX, which corresponds with the Hybrid well in the features department (and even has some things not on the Hybrid), and the less well equipped LX. Both have equivalent mechanical specs (and both are evaluated with an automatic transmission).
EX. Base price 19,060. This car seems to have every feature mentioned for the hybrid, except that the automatic is a traditional five speed. The EPA mileage estimate is 30/40 city/highway.
LX. Base Price 17,310. I couldn't tell from Honda's website all the differences between this and the EX, but I'm certain it's missing various bits like the nice CD player, a moonroof, outside temperature display etc. Perhaps all these are worth 1700 dollars, but I wouldn't pay for them. The mileage is the same as the EX.
So, if we take the price difference between the two standard models and the hybrid, we get $2,790 for the EX and $4,540 for the LX. If we keep the car for 150,000 miles (we're saving the environment here, we keep our cars for a long time) and take an average of city and highway mileage as our average mileage over the life of the car, we see the hybrid saves 1285.71 gallons of gas over the others. To make up the purchase price differential of the hybrid, gas would need to be only $2.17 for the EX and bit more at $3.53 for the LX. Clearly, the hybrid can make up it's purchase price over the EX, and will likely do so for the LX as oil becomes increasingly scarce.
However, there are other factors. I've heard through the grapevine that a $700 tax credit is available for hybrids, adding to their appeal. This does not negate, by a long shot, the likelihood of having to replace the hybrid battery, something that has been rumored to cost about $6,000 - $10,000. And, there may be other maintenance costs associated with the complex drivetrain. Let's just look at these two additional factors however.
Adding in a $6,000 battery replacement and a $700 tax credit, we find a price differential of $8,090 for the EX and $9,840 for the LX. Remember, this is just differences in the cars. Each car has similar mechanicals other than the hybrid parts of the drivetrain, so I assume these other parts will fail similarly. These numbers require gas prices of $6.29 for the EX and $7.65 for the LX. Relative to the US now, these are stratospheric. Relative to the rest of the world, e.g. Germany, this isn't out of reach.
So I stand by my conclusions. Hybrids are very cool, and they may help us be independent of certain oil producing states. But economically they aren't a slam dunk. As for assessing their environmental impact, that's more work than I can spare right now; a full life cycle analysis including production wastes for materials, emissions during use and final disposal is no small task. Maybe if I go for a second Ph.D I'll see if anyone wants to fund that work.
First, the hybrid. Base price $21,850. This includes all kinds of good stuff like side air bags, abs, cc, ac with climate control, a CD player and a continuously variable transmission. All in all, this car is pretty well equipped. The EPA mileage estimate is 49/51 city/highway.
The non-hybrid. Here things get a little tricky. The hybrid is sold as one trim level only (with a nav option), so we have to pick the corresponding non-hybrid trim level. However, if you are interested in saving money, you may not care for all the fancy tidbits and would go with a more lowly Civic. So, here I have compared the uplevel EX, which corresponds with the Hybrid well in the features department (and even has some things not on the Hybrid), and the less well equipped LX. Both have equivalent mechanical specs (and both are evaluated with an automatic transmission).
EX. Base price 19,060. This car seems to have every feature mentioned for the hybrid, except that the automatic is a traditional five speed. The EPA mileage estimate is 30/40 city/highway.
LX. Base Price 17,310. I couldn't tell from Honda's website all the differences between this and the EX, but I'm certain it's missing various bits like the nice CD player, a moonroof, outside temperature display etc. Perhaps all these are worth 1700 dollars, but I wouldn't pay for them. The mileage is the same as the EX.
So, if we take the price difference between the two standard models and the hybrid, we get $2,790 for the EX and $4,540 for the LX. If we keep the car for 150,000 miles (we're saving the environment here, we keep our cars for a long time) and take an average of city and highway mileage as our average mileage over the life of the car, we see the hybrid saves 1285.71 gallons of gas over the others. To make up the purchase price differential of the hybrid, gas would need to be only $2.17 for the EX and bit more at $3.53 for the LX. Clearly, the hybrid can make up it's purchase price over the EX, and will likely do so for the LX as oil becomes increasingly scarce.
However, there are other factors. I've heard through the grapevine that a $700 tax credit is available for hybrids, adding to their appeal. This does not negate, by a long shot, the likelihood of having to replace the hybrid battery, something that has been rumored to cost about $6,000 - $10,000. And, there may be other maintenance costs associated with the complex drivetrain. Let's just look at these two additional factors however.
Adding in a $6,000 battery replacement and a $700 tax credit, we find a price differential of $8,090 for the EX and $9,840 for the LX. Remember, this is just differences in the cars. Each car has similar mechanicals other than the hybrid parts of the drivetrain, so I assume these other parts will fail similarly. These numbers require gas prices of $6.29 for the EX and $7.65 for the LX. Relative to the US now, these are stratospheric. Relative to the rest of the world, e.g. Germany, this isn't out of reach.
So I stand by my conclusions. Hybrids are very cool, and they may help us be independent of certain oil producing states. But economically they aren't a slam dunk. As for assessing their environmental impact, that's more work than I can spare right now; a full life cycle analysis including production wastes for materials, emissions during use and final disposal is no small task. Maybe if I go for a second Ph.D I'll see if anyone wants to fund that work.
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