The eco car =/= Prius

Hello and welcome

Before we start – I wanted to do this particular entry in new form of a video log, but unfortunately my equipment (laptop cam, phone etc.) can’t provide with decent quality or at least bearable in today’s Interwebs. Maybe in near future this situation will change, but for now we must stick to reading. And now to the topic at hand:

The car, the eco, the please-everything-but-Prius

Let me state the obvious: I have a serious beef with all those pseudo-eco, pseudo-cars. All of them, with the Prius as the Grand Master of this ridicule, are not reasonable in the big scheme of things.

When we think about those kind the word hybrid comes to mind – the marriage of electric motor or motors, batteries and internal combustion engine. The word eco is often labeled on cars powered with diesel engines as well. In those two particular cases let us learn the term “amortization”.

The scary but simple amortization

To put it in the simplest form: Car X comes in two engine options, A – petrol engine and B – diesel engine. The petrol engine is cheaper to buy but it has lower mileage to gallon/burns more l. to 100 km. of fuel. The diesel one is more expensive but more “economical”. So what we want to check before buying one over another is when this bigger cost while buying disappear though costs of consumed fuel vs petrol engined option – to put it in one word “amortize” itself. Ok?

Ok. Let us take this Prius on a test ride: Where I live the Prius (bare, basic option) costs around 23 800E/32 700$ (which is awfully lot for a car this size and that uncomfortable) and for comparison purposes let us take another Toyota – the Auris. It is fairly the same size, more comfortable, because it has normal gearbox while Prius has effectively one gear; this means Prius is always on high revs which is ear-killing. Auris is also lighter. In basic option it costs around 16 000E/22 000$ (which also is a lot for this kind of car, but let us stick to one brand). So the difference is 7800E. Let say we drive 25 thousand kilometers a year. From my personal experience with Auris I know it consumes average of 7l/100km. With Prius I averaged 5l/100km. After few calculations containing current price of petrol in Poland (~1.25E) and the amortization time is… Tadaaa: 12,5 years! Go with some other compact class car (maybe cheaper, but also well-made European one) and the amortization time widens.

My little demonstration of course does not include the amortization of the “eco impact” what I would call it. Prius in its floor has a “couple” of batteries. Toyota guarantees that those batteries will remain in decent shape for 5 years or 150k kilometers. Put the cost of replacing those batteries aside, those old ones have to be utilized – and if I know anything about ecology, those batteries are everything but ecological. And it doesn’t end there. Where components to build Prius come from? From all over the world, right? So what ecological impact had the transport of those components and shipping to wherever place in the world you live? I would argue that if we ran simulation for this “ecological amortization” the effects would be similar to what I’ve got while calculating the economical one.

So you want to have an ecological car?

I won’t point on any particular brand or model. What I will do is to encourage you to make an educated choice. For the eco/sustainable car you want fairly cheap to buy, fairly cheap to run car. It should be fast enough to be actively safe, it should be light and well balanced to be agile, comfortable and fun to drive enough so it won’t stress you out. Stick to downsized, maybe turbocharged petrol engines which are comparably economical, much more responsive and ecological than diesels.

The truth is that the most you can do today to be actually eco when driving is to change your driving style. Keep revs low while speeding up to cruise velocity, look ahead your road and avoid stopping violently, keep quick but steady pace. Those few simple rules should save you even couple of liters to 100km of fuel consumption without making you a slower driver.

Like this article if you like it, comment below if you want to add something relevant or not, please subscribe or support this blog in any manner you find suitable. It really helps and motivates me further.

Take good care,
Przemek Kucia

#004 – Activism

The eco and “non-eco”

Normally when people speak about activism in general they think “masses of people on the streets protesting against something”, right? It intuitively makes sense – in mass, we presume, people are “heard” and taken account for. “Those in power” cannot ignore such force. But my political science training orders me to take a wider look on such examples as big “activism ventures”. From that wider perspective I will try to make an argument, that this form of activism is more of “mental masturbation” than “real experience”.

Let’s look on the evidence. What impact had made countless Greenpeace “ecotist attacks”? Costs of reducing the damages (hard damage or PR damage) made were included in prices of final products, so in the end as customers, because of their “activism” we have or had more expensive gasoline and energy. Many people went to prison, many people work to destroy rather than to create – so in economical, efficiency sense their “activism” was counterproductive. SOPA, PIPA, ACTA – well yes, regulations under those names were delayed or hold entirely, but another regulations of surveillance weren’t pushed through? Seems to me they were and even in greater form. The “99% vs. 1%” Wall Street occupation? No one knows if this was anti-capitalism action, anti-regulated-capitalism and pro fair and simple policies action. Do you know? What regulations were dropped, what public buy out of failed or unfair enterprises was hold? None if I remember correctly. I won’t even talk about recent Ukraine “pro EU” action, because it makes me just sad.

Now, you would ask – Przemek, then what to do? Here’s my opinion:

Circle of influence vs. circle of concern

Basic concept is simple – it derives from rather “old” (1992) publication by Stephen R. Covey – “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Let me explain: The circle of concern represents all the notions of ones interests like health, weather, government spending, threat of war etc. Analogically latter circle represents on what we have strictly direct influence (as an individual). Activism then should be considered as taking actions, changing things, working the influence – activist in this sense are Coveys “proactive” people.

Proactive people focus their time and energy on circle of influence, or to put it plainly on “be’s” rather than “have’s”. Example: As proactive person I would like to be more organized, be a better role model, be better at decision making. Reactive person would, on contrary, want to have respect, have full establishment, have competent boss etc.

Working through this perspective activism is a cluster of day-to-day, mundane decision making about, what companies you support with your cash, what you do as individual to make a living, are you educating yourself and be smarter about your own savings, spending, health and healthcare plan etc. To distill the basic notion – how you act as a customer. That is how real impact happens. Because we are all customers, we all can be smarter than what Frannie May and Freddie Mac were offering for instance.

When you act on your circle of influence it grows, because you are effectively spending your time and energy. But when you’re focused solely on what concerns you, then your influence as individual shrinks. Simple as that.

If you have positive or negative response, please share in comments. Hit the like button if you like or support this site in any way you find suitable – that would be awesome.

Until next time, take good care

Przemek Kucia

#003 – Essay: Foster cooperation

Hello and welcome

Whenever people cooperate they use less resources to complete the same task. Trough smart policies and avoidance of over regulated systems we are able to foster it to the extend where people who would hate each other cooperate (being conscious or not) to bring best value and satisfaction to us and to them. The classic exemplification would be the case of pencil, where rubber comes from Arabic states, wood from Europe, copper from Eurasia and graphite from North America, all of this assembled in Southern America and shipped to Australia. All this nations cooperating to bring us pencils despite distresses and disputes between them.

If you like to learn more about this notion, please check out my Essay: Foster the cooperation where I combine simple ideas to prove efficiency of elegant policies.

Like it if you like it, subscribe if you want to see more of this stuff. I really appreciate any kind of support.

Take good care
Przemek Kucia

#002 – The idea which made me blog

The absurdity of mainstream ecotism… I like green ideas, new technologies, efficient techniques and I’m more than anyone excited about possibilities of free or at least much cheaper, clean energy. But sadly, this perspective of being eco is not the loudest one. Men and women of the Al Gore sort would rather see us all drop our civilisation, drop our standards, drop our reason and brains just to hug trees and sign into the most stupid, least efficient ways of prevention. And what we should prevent? In plans – global warming (which isn’t really even the biggest problem), but in fact – development, growth, flourish of humanity and humanitarian/humanist way we should treat… I wanted to say “planet”, but really what I meant is ourselves and our grandchildren.

I’m of the opinion that we don’t leave the planet to our children in succession, but we just lease it from them. What all of those Al Gores are doing is truly defeatism – they’re practically saying: “we can’t produce robust development, better our standard of living and the same time sustain our planet healthy”. To mildly put all those ideas which derives from this notion (like Kioto treaty, EU market of CO2 limits etc. both of which are effectively slaughtering developing countries) – those are idiotic.

We already have technologies to get our lives going after the oil and coal, we already hae technology for sustainable housing, sustainable food production etc. We won’t upgrade and update them untill two things happen. One – until we free the capital that is moronically wasted on ecotism and regulating every possible human action. Two – yes, until oil and coal become expensive enough that inventors and early adopters get to the matter of problem.

Wish I that cold fusion becomes a standard before I die? Of course I do. Wish I that the population educates itself and makes smarter choices about who and when they support with their money and day to day spending habits? Naturally. I just think that to make that change we should give positive example not to thrust green socialism into their throats (like religious people would do).

Hmm… That went pretty warmly.

Like if you like it, comment if you agree or disagree, follow if you want to support – that would really be helpful.

Take good care
Przemek Kucia

#001 – Hello World

Hello and welcome!

Firstly let me tell you little about idea behind the Fancy Eco Blog with a small piece of backstory: Some of you may know me from Charisma Workshop, my previous project focused around themes of leadership, intellectual discipline, political science and communicology – things I’m absolutely keen on still, yet my workload around those themes made blogging about them a bit redundant for me. That being wrapped up I thought: Well, I would still like to blog – I really enjoy researching new things, combining new knowledge with my different circles of interest (economy, decision making process, method of research etc.) and seeing where new perspectives get me.

My choice of ecology as the theme for this project comes really from the focus on avoiding the slight mistakes behind Charisma Workshop. You see, the Workshop is about theme of my very best expertise I could think of. What it mean is I was enclosed between two not-that-optimal options: 1. I write about something new and exciting for me and this will be rather hard to digest for others. 2. I’ll write something digestible and it has to be rather basic in terms of idea behind it – hence not that exciting for me. With Fancy Eco Blog though I am able to write always with excitement and sense of freshness even when talking about very basic rationale and ideas – just because I am myself pretty new to this theme.

Ok, so that’s that: I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I do. Subscribe If you like this notion, spread the word or show your support by commenting I would really appreciate if you do that.

Take good care

– Przemek Kucia