Continuing to Put Money into a Clunker

[Hoofhearted]

(03-02-2017, 04:07 PM)Bilbo Saggins Wrote: It's actually more environmentally efficient to run old cars into the ground rather than to spend the resources necessary to make a new one.  Now if you had the option to buy a car where the mining, manufacturing, and assembly operations were run by clean energy(solar/wind/geo/old hydro), then that might be a different story.  At present no one on the market offers that.  The $10 million/minute global subsidies given to energy companies keep the prices too low to incentivize them to do anything aside from what they already know how to do: provide fossil fuel energy for a global economy that has been tooled and engineered to consume fossil fuels.

Depends on the context; Is it just cars that get decent mileage, or all vehicles? if all, that discussion changes drastically IMO. A old f150 vs a new one wouldn't compare IMO. You spend resources also buying those new alternators, batteries, fenders, etc. Those are also  mined and built at the expense of earth, while also having crappier emissions. We also have to take into considerations that emissions the older vs newer cars have. It's pretty safe to say a car from the 80's will not have nearly as good of emissions as a newer one. Good discussion tho.