Will a Prius Free Us, or Doom Us

Here we are. The 5^th anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of Iraq. And we still have lots of liberals saying that the battle, indeed the entire war on terror is nothing more than a war to control oil. It's all about the oil they tell us over and over.

They keep telling us we need to cut our dependency on oil that comes form the Middle East and elsewhere. They won't let us explore our own country for our own oil reserves even in areas in which countries like Mexico and Brazil are exploring. Yes I am talking about the Gulf of Mexico among other places.

They have convinced many people to downsize their cars and SUV's and they have even convinced many people to buy and drive the Toyota Prius. In fact they have screamed the praises of the Prius so much that they are now calling for the government to mandate that the rest of us begin to drive these “earth saving” cars.

They, the environmentalist, tell us that the Prius is a revolution in the storied history of the automobile. They praised this car. Told us how little fuel it used and that a person could get up to 60 mpg. People began buying these cars. So many bought them that there was a back order on them for the first 2 years of their production.

This changed the course of the mighty Toyota Corporation. They changed their goals for the Prius. Toyota has said they planned to have 1 million of these hybrid cars on the worlds road within the next few years.

Now I say hold a minute. What do we really know about this car? We know it doesn't get 60 mpg. In fact what is really happening on the road to the dismay of many is the Prius is getting about 40 mpg. Not a huge difference from some larger and better gas cars. In the Toyota line up, one can spend about half the price of a Prius and get a Corolla and get a consumer reported 35 mpg.

I know that one of my cars, the Scion tC gets me an average of 32 mpg and it has a 160 horse power engine. And it cost less than 18 thousand dollars. Not bad at all. But what is the total cost of this Prius that these loud wackos want the government to force us to drive. Well according to a number of reports (and growing) this thing is far from being environmentally friendly.

Environment NC is reporting that a Prius produces 44% MORE global warming green house gases over its life than a Toyota Avalon. And if you don't know what a Toyota Avalon is, it's the biggest car from Toyota without going SUV.

The Belmont Club reported just how bad the Prius is for the environment. And they have plenty of reports and listed documents to back up their article. In fact here is an excerpt from this article:

As already noted, the Prius is partly driven by a battery which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario. This plant has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding environment that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The area around the plant is devoid of any life for miles.

Now what do you Prius owners think? You have help create an area on our own planet that NASA uses to train for roving on the Moon and Mars. That sounds like its a huge environmental friend, doesn't it.