Toyota Creates Its Own Flower Species to Gobble Harmful Gases

Fast Company:

Toyota is upping the green stakes with a strange, yet ingenious initiative--the company has developed two new flower species that offset CO2 emissions from its Prius manufacturing plant in Toyota City, Japan.

Read the whole story: Fast Company

Comments

[jsarets]

If Toyota switched from DC permanent magnet motors to AC induction motors and from NiMH cells to LiFePO4 or LIC/EDLC cells, then they wouldn't need to mine rare earth metals for their hybrid vehicles.

But in order to earn their green halo, they had to be first to market, so they accepted higher production cost/impact in exchange for cheaper/faster development. They hid the production cost behind higher-margin products, and they hid the production impact behind higher mileage relative to vehicles powered by generations of truly terrible small combustion engines whose days are now numbered.

About a year from now, we'll be able to buy conventional gasoline/E85 cars that get 45 mpg for about half the price of a Prius, and there are already common-rail turbodiesels like the VW Golf TDI that get better fuel mileage than the Prius according to everybody except the EPA.

[RomeoMD25]

The atmosphere of Mars is 95.32 percent carbon dioxide; yet the temperature goes from about +0 C during the day to about -140 C at night, depending on the source of information. The atmospheric pressure is only 0.7 percent of that of the earth. If I understand this correctly, 0.007 X 95.32.% = 0.667% carbon dioxide on Mars when equated to earth's atmosphere, compared to 0.038% CO2 on earth. So Mars has 17.55 times the carbon dioxide density of the CO2 on earth, and yet cannot hold the temperature of Mars overnight. Density takes into account the gravity of both Mars and Earth. The sad fact is that carbon dioxide has no greenhouse effect at all!

[jsarets]

The fact that Mars has less then 1% of the atmospheric density of Earth is the predominant reason for the much larger diurnal temperature variation. If Mars had an equally thin nitrogen-based atmosphere, it would be colder and more variable.

All atmospheric gases have a greenhouse effect, some more than others. Nitrogen and oxygen have a greenhouse effect, and although it is less than that of CO2 by mass, the enormous mass of N2 and O2 in Earth's atmosphere accounts for the majority of the total greenhouse effect.

Adding CO2 to the atmosphere increases the greenhouse effect. Study after study reaffirms this fact. There are also several other factors influencing mean global temperatures, including solar, geological, and biological processes.

This effect is well-understood and very predictable in contexts with fewer variables. For instance, filling the gap in double-pane windows with CO2 instead of air increases their insulation and reduces heat loss through the building envelope without the high cost of argon.

Your position is demonstrably wrong. If I were you, I'd call into question the public policy prescriptions rather than greenhouse gas theory.

[NewLiberals]

Imagine what kind of recall this might create!

[DaizeRK14]

This just in: New Toyota flower Species goes on a rampage in Tokyo as the new species turns mutant and grows 20 times bigger than intended. Toyota officials have halted further development of the new species as it retrofits all existing toyota plants within Japan to start making mammoth tanks to combat this new enemy. More details as soon as they come.

[davemartin7777]

You can count on Toyota's giant, mutant flowers becoming popular in America in a year.

[saneman82]

My bet is that it will be smaller, more efficient and profitable than its north american competitors. And will soon have its own best selling manga.

[Ken Maddox]

From Detroit: GM fears they will not be able to match the rapid growth of Toyota's Godzilla Poesy. A spokesman stated that a domestic man eating plant is years away, and mentioned production problems with union led seeds.

Nissan appears to be near a launch of their proprietary species within two quarters. The Dow was noticeably down after the news of Toyota's success was announced.

[Vetinari]

Toyota is now in the bioengineering business?

[davemartin7777]

Of course branching off into bioengineering that would be a joke if this were an American car company... not so much with Asian car company like Toyota.

[slvrfox857]

It sounds wonderful. But how many ideas sounded wonderful until the unintended consequences were discovered?

[publius1]

2.