Does owning a Leaf = your an environmentalist?

[Anonymous]

We bought our Leaf to save gas money ... and to get cool new technology to play with before others ... and to screw the Saudis ... and because it just makes sense with our driving habits (we are stranded in a traffic-clogged part of LA and only commute/travel within a 5-mile radium 99% of the time) ... plus we have a SUV for longer trips. I don't know if any of those reasons make me an environmentalist or not. Depends on how you define that term.

It makes you an environmentalist. You are NOT using gasoline and you are NOT polluting out your exhaust pipe.
It is like folks who eat steak. They are carnivores.
You can say you do it for the taste, or because you want to get maximum protein for calories, or because you are a body-builder.
But you are still a carnivore.

That's ridiculous. By that same notion EVERYONE is an environmentalist that isn't personally burning down rain forests every day.

What is your definition of "environmentalist" then? What would it take to NOT be one? Because no matter what you're doing, you could always be doing something WORSE, couldn't you?

In my mind "environmentalist" is associated with WHY you do something, not exactly WHAT you're doing.

By your definition, my neighbor must be an environmentalist because he only has THREE cars for himself, and he COULD have EIGHT. And that's just BS.

 

[mainsil]

It doesn't really hurt that it is marginaly better for the environment, but no. My reasons, in order of importance (with #1 a long distance ahead of everything else) are:

• Car pool lane sticker for my commute (got addicted with my hybrid)
• Home refueling
• Nice gadgets
• Less frequent maintenance

Since I do not have solar panels on my roof, a better environmental play would be CNG which would also get me back ot the car pool lane and allow for home refuel. I would expect that burning natural gas in an ICE is probably more efficient than burning it in a power plant, converting it to electric, transimitting the electric, and charging a batter to run an electric motor. However, I'm not sure I would want to risk having a CNG station in my garage. It may be perfectly safe, but it scares me...

Or in the extreme, uproot my family, and move out of the suburbs and into the ugly condo complex a block away from work so I could walk.

When Nissan is ready to go to full bore production, I would be surprised if they don't toute the convenience factor. If only the car wasn't so ugly, they would likely get huge sales.

 

[Nekota]

When I was in graduate school I studied nuclear engineering and considered myself an environmentalist but some disagree with that particular configuration then and now. After interacting with environmentally inclined zealots, I tend to avoid that classification for myself but I am proud to be finally driving a car that is nuclear powered.

 

[EVDrive]

The Leaf is not ugly at all. Silly you if you buy a car you don't like the looks of. Haha. All my friends think it is nice looking and so do I. It is not as refined as a G35 and the headlights are odd and take some getting used to. At the end of the day, I like that it sticks out of the crowd. I feel like i am driving a spaceship in the Leaf. Lots of people think the Prius is ugly but i don't. I think SUVs are ugly inside and out.

It doesn't really hurt that it is marginaly better for the environment, but no. My reasons, in order of importance (with #1 a long distance ahead of everything else) are:

• Car pool lane sticker for my commute (got addicted with my hybrid)
• Home refueling
• Nice gadgets
• Less frequent maintenance

Since I do not have solar panels on my roof, a better environmental play would be CNG which would also get me back ot the car pool lane and allow for home refuel. I would expect that burning natural gas in an ICE is probably more efficient than burning it in a power plant, converting it to electric, transimitting the electric, and charging a batter to run an electric motor. However, I'm not sure I would want to risk having a CNG station in my garage. It may be perfectly safe, but it scares me...

Or in the extreme, uproot my family, and move out of the suburbs and into the ugly condo complex a block away from work so I could walk.

When Nissan is ready to go to full bore production, I would be surprised if they don't toute the convenience factor. If only the car wasn't so ugly, they would likely get huge sales.

 

[EVDrive]

Wow , even after one of the worst nuclear disasters in history is still happening in Japan.
I am happy that so many on this forum have solar an power. Wind, hydro, solar and geothermal are my top choices for powering evs.

By the way, could we store all our spent nuclear fuel rods at your house? I'm sure you wouldn't mind right because nuclear is so clean and not a disaster waiting to happen at all.

When I was in graduate school I studied nuclear engineering and considered myself an environmentalist but some disagree with that particular configuration then and now. After interacting with environmentally inclined zealots, I tend to avoid that classification for myself but I am proud to be finally driving a car that is nuclear powered.

 

[mainsil]

The Leaf is not ugly at all. Silly you if you buy a car you don't like the looks of. .

It would be silly of me if I were to forgoe the car that best meets my needs just because it was ugly. :roll: After all, I don't have to look at it after I get in. :lol:

I bought the care to shave time off my commute. Time that I can spend with my family.

I'm glad you like the way it looks. I have some friends that think its attractive and others that don't. People have different opinions on what's attractive.

 

[EVDrive]

Well that all makes sense. I hope you like how it looks inside. Maybe v 2.1 will be prettier with smaller headlights and a more refined tail end and we will all be envious. The Prius gen 2 was way better looking than gen 1 in my opinion.

.

The Leaf is not ugly at all. Silly you if you buy a car you don't like the looks of. .

It would be silly of me if I were to forgoe the car that best meets my needs just because it was ugly. :roll: After all, I don't have to look at it after I get in. :lol:

I bought the care to shave time off my commute. Time that I can spend with my family.

I'm glad you like the way it looks. I have some friends that think its attractive and others that don't. People have different opinions on what's attractive.

 

[Nekota]

By the way, could we store all our spent nuclear fuel rods at your house? I'm sure you wouldn't mind right because nuclear is so clean and not a disaster waiting to happen at all.

I lived in Wisconsin and would have loved to use the waste heat from some spent rods as it would have been particularly nice during the ice storm of '76. And one should not store nuclear fuel rods, they should be reprocessed to recover the reclaimed materials for the next generation of power systems or future technologies and isolate the long half life isotopes. Doing nothing is the disaster.

 

[walterbays]

one should not store nuclear fuel rods, they should be reprocessed to recover the reclaimed materials for the next generation of power systems or future technologies and isolate the long half life isotopes. Doing nothing is the disaster.

The problem with that is that the plutonium thus produced is excellent for making nuclear bombs, excellent for coup leaders of unstable allies to seize from their nuclear arsenals to turn against who knows whom, excellent for terrorists to steal to try to make nuclear bombs of their own, and pretty good for terrorists to steal or blow up in place to make crude dirty bombs.

So I used to think what should be done is to operate a number of breeder reactors to reprocess all the waste fuel rods, and to assign thousands of soldiers to guard those sites rather than guarding oil supply lines in those unstable ally nations.

But then I read about Thorium. It produces much less waste that is less radioactive with a much shorter half life than uranium, and it's much more plentiful than uranium. The only "drawback" which led to it being bypassed as the first nuclear reactor fuel is that it is useless for building nuclear bombs. Our first nuclear power plants had to support a nuclear weapons industry to fend off the Soviet Union and win the Cold War. But wait! There is no Soviet Union and no Cold War. Now we'd call it an advantage that you can't make bombs with it. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...nd-China-is-leading-the-way-with-thorium.html

It remains to be seen whether heavily guarded breeder reactors, or thorium reactors, designed and operated for safety in event of various natural and man-made disasters, would produce power as cheaply as solar and wind plants. But that's the comparison we ought to be making, not with old style uranium plants producing lots of waste, where we just hope that no disaster like an earthquake will ever happen.

 

[Nekota]

The problem with that is that the plutonium thus produced is excellent for making nuclear bombs, excellent for coup leaders of unstable allies to seize from their nuclear arsenals to turn against who knows whom, excellent for terrorists to steal to try to make nuclear bombs of their own, and pretty good for terrorists to steal or blow up in place to make crude dirty bombs.

The plutonium produced in a power reactor becomes isotope 240 and that is more difficult to make a weapon with compared to the 239 isotope, but a pu-240 nuclear weapon was made and detonated. However, stealing plutonium to make a weapon is the hard way - it's much easier to bribe or steal one that's already made. Or find the ones that have been lost.

Thorium 232 is a promising energy source for India and a thorium powered car was submitted to the X-Prize panel. I'll recommend you read it to see why it was disqualified.

http://eetweb.com/news/thorium-generator-091211/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[hill]

Environmentalist? It might mean YOU are ... or your ... or you're. Turns on how you spell it.

For me ... it's the best I can to do cut use of foreign oil /petro dollars ... going to alqueda flight school. Sorry for going political, but 911 disturbed me that way. Colaterally, being a spend thrift, it saves a boat load on the work commute. Win-win. Each individual's reasons differ though.

 

[hodad66]

 

[TRONZ]

I don't think being an environmentalist is something you buy. No more than buying a pair of Calvin Klein jeans makes you a model. Environmental concern just takes awareness and having a good conscience. It is not a product, it is just good character.

 

[tps]

Since the LEAF was introduced (which is not available here quite yet), I've been thinking a lot more about the stuff coming out of my car's tailpipe and how I can put a stop to that with the LEAF as soon as I can buy one. Maybe the Lance Armstrong "tailpipe" commercial resonated with me...

 

[Harv]

+1

 

[hodad66]

I don't have the means to install PV panels or much else
but I haven't used a gas operated lawn tool in 15 years.
In fact I have gotten rid of a "lawn" completely with the
use of mulch, walkways, a pond and driveway. This has
done away with petrochemicals to a great degree.
I stay close to home.... travel roughly 5K per year and
have driven small, economical vehicles most of my life.
Am I an environmentalist? Honestly, I don't know but
one thing that I learned from my parents was to live
within my means. The American dream should never
have meant debt beyond one's control.