How "Green" Is The Prius?

Turns out that green may be more of a brown; brown being the color left behind by environmental damage.

"...it takes more combined energy per Prius to produce than a Hummer."

If that isn't eye-brow raising enough, consider the following:

"...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. The plant is the source of all the nickel found in a Prius’ battery and Toyota purchases 1,000 tons annually. Dubbed the Superstack, the plague-factory has spread sulfur dioxide across northern Ontario, becoming every environmentalist’s nightmare. “The acid rain around Sudbury was so bad it destroyed all the plants and the soil slid down off the hillside,” said Canadian Greenpeace energy-coordinator David Martin during an interview with the Mail, a British-based newspaper. "

To make matters even more disconcerning:

"The nickel produced by this disastrous plant is shipped via massive container ship to the largest nickel refinery in Europe. From there, the nickel hops over to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From there, it goes to Japan. Finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the United States, finalizing the around-the-world trip required to produce a single Prius battery. "

That's quite a trip.

Environmentally friendly? Hardly. Corporate America, in cooperation with Uncle Sam no doubt, has once again fooled the public into thinking they're doing something "good" for the environment. Maybe we shouldn't be bashing those Hummer drivers afterall.