PBS falls for the CNW report!

Video that was originally in the OP:

I'm not sure this should come as much of a surprise to anybody. Since the Republican takeover of PBS in 2005, they have pretty much morphed into Fox News Lite.

GOP takeover of PBS from CommonDreams.org

 

Nothing PBS does surprises me.

 

I've become very disappointed with my local PBS. They've had shows with some quack Doctors on herbal/organic medicine. I've done internet searches that have shown this guy is a quack, but there he is on KPBS.

I'm disappointed in some of their other programming choices. They moved Masterpiece Theater from Sunday nights. I don't know where it is now. Mystery used to be on Thursday. Don't know where that went either. They used to be must see TV on my personal schedule. Not any more. My biggest disappointment was when Bob Vila was fired from This Old House. Of course, that was a WGBH decision. But I never warmed up to Steve the Dork.

 

Art Spinella is full of doody.

Did he ever check out GM or FORD or ...eekk Chrysler?

His statement "Somewhere else, whether it's in Japan, or China, or Canada or the United States, winds up, in effect, having to pay for part of Los Angeles getting cleaner air."

I believe that statement like I believe in Santa Claus.

ZC1

 

He's just a wanna be and probably is on that long wait list!

 

Yeah, it wouldn't have been that bad if only they had shown the other side of the story/issue. I really liked what hard-hitting journalistic questions she posed to him. Instead of really getting to the bottom of what the truth was, she just took anything he said as gospel. -Well, look at it this way, common sense should prevail here (and sticker shock at the gas pumps). Blowhards like that idiot can talk until their blue in the face about how much better Hummers are for the environment, it won't stop me or others who want more mileage or greener travel from buying a Prius. The backorders proves this.

 

I liked the production values of that segment. Man, that's a nice house she's got there.

 

If Spinella really were concerned about "energy costs and the complexity of developing products", he wouldn't be talking with the reporter via computer -- he would have written her a letter. In fact, he is seeking publicity for his company -- a marketing research firm that lives and dies on telling other companies what to do -- and probably would not have completed the interview if there were hardball questions. And I'm not criticizing his right to conduct his business this way -- just looking at the facts of the situation. And, did you notice that the reporter did not decide to keep the Prius for any environmental concerns, but because it gives great gas mileage?

 

In PBS, what does the BS stand for?

Please excuse my ignorance, I'm Australian.

2 things,
At the end of the report she does say she is getting 500 miles from a tank which is good.
There is also an invitation to send in your story, so would someone like to send a rebuttal to this report in a form they can fit into a 4 minute slot?

 

With respect to everyone about the Republican takeover of PBS, our local WGBH is closer to the New China News Agency. PBS does have some jewels and other great shows but they have mis handled their formatting. Like someone said, at one time they presented shows you stayed home for. Masterpiece, Jean Sheppard, Civil War. Sadly those days are gone

 

I find it hard to believe this really is a PBS show. This video looks like it was made my amateurs. My local PBS channel (so.CA) has professionally-filmed shows. I question whether this really is a PBS show or whether it was uploaded by Hummer, and just claiming to be PBS.

Aside from that, I think anyone with average intelligence can figure out that over the life of the vehicle, the Hummer will burn thousands of gallons of gasoline more than the Prius, which will clearly be greater than any energy differences in manufacturing the two vehicles.

H3 ____100,000mi/13mpg = 7692gal
Prius___100,000mi/45mpg = 2222gal
A difference of 5470gal. Most vehicles today will get 300K mi over their lifetime though. This means a difference of 16,410 gallons! At $4.00 per gallon, that's $65,640 !!!!!

 

spinella is probably getting kickbacks from GM, he probably never been in a prius, I mean i drive on highway at 70 mph and average 50 mpg, i dont see the issue staying in left lane vs right lane.

 

Assuming a serious query, PBS stands for Public Broadcsting Service. Here is a snatch of information from its Web site:

PBS is a private, nonprofit corporation, founded in 1969, whose members are America's public TV stations.
PBS provides quality TV programming and related services to 355 noncommercial stations serving all 50 states, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.

Assuming a not-so-serious query, PBS tends toward left of the middle of the road in programming. Generally decent quality shows, usually presenting information that major broadcasters don't deal with.

 

Sorry it wasn't serious, I'm not quite that ignorant but I'm sure some troll may wander by and find that explanation fascinating. I guess I was referring to another common phrase for which BS is an acronym. It seems there was an abundance of it in the interview.

There are some independent TV stations here which are mostly amateur operated but I don't think there is any sort of collaboration between states but I could be wrong. The local amateur station is Channel 31.

 

This was sponsored by Shell/Exxon Mobil... LOL
Prius can not be in the high speed lane... please..I sometimes drive up to 74-75 MPH and I am still getting between 47-50 MPG... what does he get in the high speed lane with his Gas powered car 25-30 MPG. The guy is a joke.

 

I understand the report and can see a point or two being made there about energy offsets etcetera. However, and someone else mentioned this before, she did say at the end that she would not trade in her Prius as long as she was getting 500 miles a tank, and to add to that benefit, I am very happy to be paying $30 to $40 dollars a week in gas also.

I have a feeling that in the end, all the figures and costs and energy use breaks even anyway. Perhaps Hybrids cost more to produce, but then they cost less to use. Non-hybrid cars may cost less to produce, but they cost more to use.

Dave

 

What really, really gets under my skin about the CNW report is that nobody will do even the simplest math with his figures. Or the simplest comparison to reliable sources. If anyone would just just bother to do that, it would be obvious that his numbers are just ludicrous. Insane. Not a little wrong, not even way wrong, just flat out stupid-silly-impossible-nuts-disconnected-from-reality. All of his numbers, not just the one for the Prius.

At the risk of being the only sane person in an insane world, I'll look up and present the data again.

Spinella's report describes the "energy cost per mile" as being based on gasoline at $3 per gallon. My point is not whether that's right or not, but that he apparently really does think he is looking at an actual dollar cost of all the energy used to produce, drive, and scrap the vehicles.

The median (average) energy cost per mile, for all vehicles listed in his report, is $2.25. So, the average car costs $2.25 per mile, total energy cost.

Both of these items can be found or calculated from in the downloads on the CNW website, Automotive Energy

From the get-go, there's clearly an issue here. For a US average passenger vehicle getting 21 MPG, the cost per mile for the gasoline, even at $4/gallonl, is about 20 cents per mile. So, Spinella says the cost of the gasoline is only one-tenth the total energy cost of the vehicle, for the average vehicle.

But the US Argonne National Laboratory (and others of that quality) says quite the reverse: that the gasoline is about 90 percent of the overall (life cycle) energy cost of the vehicle. For example, Figure 5 in this report, from Argonne National Laboratory:

http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/106.pdf

So, here we have this know-nothing contradicting one of the most prestigious research institutions in the US. Not by a little bit, but saying the exact opposite of what they say. And people pay attention to the know-nothing.

So that's my first gripe. CNW's estimate for gasoline as a fraction of energy cost is wrong. It's totally at odds with all the other serious studies of this issue, including studies by Argonne National Laboratories. It's-just-completely-wrong.

Fine, now let's total up the total "energy cost" of all US driving, based on Spinella's estimate.

US passenger vehicles rack up roughly 3 trillion miles each year, per the US DOT. (If you access the source, note that the numbers are listed in millions of miles, so the annual total is 3 million million or 3 trillion.)

OHPI - Traffic Volume Trends

A little arithmetic now: 3 trillion miles, at $2.25 per mile, equals $6.75 trillion dollars.

Therefore, if we accept the data in the CNW report, the total energy cost of US driving is $6.75 trillion dollars.

Nothing up my sleeve there, folks. All I (or any @#$@$ reporter in the US) had to do is look up total US passenger miles, and multiply.

Now that's a pretty good trick, as total US spending for energy of all types was just $1 trillion in the most recent year of data available (2005), per the US DOE.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/pdf/pages/sec1_13.pdf

Using the CNW estimate, the energy cost of our cars is more than 6 times the actual total energy cost for all uses of energy in the US.

Now, some may say, but hey, we import cars, don't we? Yeah, and we import oil too. But just to nail the coffin as tightly as possible, the US consumes one-quarter of the world's energy. So total worldwide energy consumption would amount to about $4 trillion or so. The 25% figure is common knowledge, I'll just cite wikipedia on that one:

World energy resources and consumption - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If you accept CNW's estimate, the energy cost of US driving is roughly 1.5 times the total energy used by the entire world for all purposes.

Now how d*mned stupid is that? And it gets national media attention. Once again, nothing up my sleeve, all it takes is multiplying US total vehicle miles times the average energy cost per mile per CNW.

This, folks, is why America is in trouble. We have media who cultivate our stupidity, greed, prejudice, hostility and general witlessness.

 

SOMEONE FINALLY CAUGHT ON TO THIS!

This report is a red herring, meant to get attention for his company.

And the media bites. I love the CNN piece the other day, if they had done their own research instead of regurgitating the New York Post's story they would have found the premium that that dude payed was on the low end of the spectrum.

 

Same thing as TV, I think.