Hybrid Cars - Are Hybrid Cars Becoming Safer or More Harmful to the Environment?

Hybrid cars:

Are Hybrid Cars Becoming Safer or More Harmful to the Environment?

I. Introduction

Hybrid cars have a very special technology because they boast two power sources: a regular gasoline engine and an electric motor powered by a huge battery unlike conventional cars which have only regular gasoline engine. These components generally work in tandem, though the exact mechanism varies depending on the car. When the car is at stop, the engine shuts off. While you push the accelerator, the electric motor turns on to drive the car forward. When you need the power such as for climbing a hill, the gas engine gets a boost from the electric motor. The electric motor normally recharges itself by censoring the heat energy generated as you brake (Brown, 2008). Hybrid cars also help to reduce the amount of smog emission because of less working of gasoline engine. This does not mean that hybrid cars help the environment because they still have the issue of their batteries about being extremely harmful to the environment.

Nowadays, there are more than 5 million hybrid cars around the world but this means that there will be also 5 million batteries from these hybrid cars. What would happen in the next few years if these batteries end up in landfills? According to environmental researchers, 90% of 1 million metric tons of lead which is produced every year is used for vehicle batteries ("Hybrid Battery Toxicity", 2006). These batteries still have issues even though they are more environmentally friendly than the standard batteries. Nickel may cause cancer in human body because it is considered as a human carcinogen (Olberding, 2010). Therefore, many people are concerned about nickel mining as one kind of misuse of natural resources. According to the Environmental Defense, there are three main battery types such as lead, nickel, and lithium. The worst thing that harmful to the environment is lead battery, followed by nickel, and lithium (Banas, 2010). By the way, the rechargeable hybrid cars can force power plants to produce excessive amounts of electricity; therefore, power plant emissions can be just as harmful as exhaust pipe emissions. Running hybrid cars on the street can also contribute the amounts of greenhouse gases as same as running normal vehicles because hybrid system works effectively only on heavily congested streets ("Hybrid Cars Negative Environmental Impact", 2007). Even though hybrid cars help the environment, they are still harmful to the environment due to battery use, use of natural resources, and ineffective use of motor systems.

II. Opposing Arguments

A. Batteries

The batteries in hybrid cars give a better choice for the fuel economy and environment that have been becoming to the next generation of car's technology. They provide the electricity for electric motor; hence, the motor uses less gasoline when they are working in an urban area. Hybrid cars are able to provide more than 35% in fuel economy ("Facts on Hybrid Cars", 2012). The nickel metal hydride batteries have been using in every hybrid car since the first hybrid car was produced. Both lead battery and nickel hydride batteries are rechargeable batteries, but the environment impact of nickel is much lower than lead acid which are used in conventional vehicles. According to the article "Nickel-Metal Hydride" (2006), the nickel-Metal Hydride is a solid battery; more energy can be given for the amount of space. Density is an essential concern, as weight is a severe wall to efficiency. Hybrid cars are still sold in lowered numbers; therefore, the negative effects of hybrid batteries are not instant.

B. Natural resources

Today's hybrid cars are shown up by many benefits; increasing fuel economy, and saving the fuel. Even though it is true that hybrid cars can save lots of gasoline, and we can get our tax back from them, the best thing of these benefits is the very less produced amount of gas emissions. Hybrid cars emit 80% less greenhouse gases than conventional cars ("Hybrid Cars Emissions Information", 2012). This translates to less airborne pollutants and a cleaner earth. The important factor of negative effects of vehicles on the environment is greenhouse gasses. As a result, most of greenhouse gasses are from human activities and cause the temperature in the air and ocean to rise (Hybrid Cars and Pollution, 2012). In fact, the temperatures are increasing. The changes have observed over the last few decades are mainly because of human activities, but we cannot refuse that the important part of these changes is also a mirror of natural changeableness (Hybrid Cars and Pollution, 2012). Large metropolitan areas around the world are widely covered by this smog while many millions of cars are concentrated. This smog is made of nitrogen oxides, hydrocarbons, and many evaporating organic compounds. Hybrid cars produce a much lower these gases than conventional vehicles.

However, the size of the car can be a great different in emissions between the hybrid and conventional vehicles. According to Banas (2010), the average of compact hybrid cars emits 10% lower smog than their conventional counterparts. This means that the models of hybrid cars such as mid-size cars, mid-size sport-utility vehicles, and full-size SUVs help to reduce smog-producing gas emissions by 15%, 19% and 21%, respectively, more than their conventional counterparts. Hybrid cars are esteemed as being fuel efficient, and good for the environment.

C. The efficiency of hybrid cars

Nowadays, hybrid cars have been building to be more efficient than conventional cars; as we known, small cars could be run more efficient than big cars. According to the article "An Introduction to Efficiency" (2006), one of the easiest ways to show efficiency is to get your amount of work with regard to how much energy was taken in the initial place. The efficiency of conventional cars can be described as how much the power of the engine is producing and divide by the amount of energy that was produced by gasoline when it was consuming. The energy of one gallon in gasoline is 115,000 British Thermal Units (Btu), and one Btu can increase the temperature of one cubic foot of air 55 degrees F ("An Introduction to Efficiency", 2006). Therefore, if a hybrid car's engine had a 100 percent of efficiency about burning gasoline, then every single Btu worth of energy carried inside the gasoline would be used only to move