Hybrid Car Factorys Benefit, Essay Example

Hybrid Car Factory’s Benefit to the Economy and Environment of Sparksville

Hello people of Sparksville! Thank you for your attendance today. I wanted to address some important issues concerning both the economy and the environment of Sparksville. Unemployment in Sparksville has been very high and many people are struggling to support their families. Currently, there are three automobile companies which are vying for the opportunity to establish a presence here in Sparksville.  Each company promises to provide jobs which will benefit the economy, while at the same time protecting the environment.  I have examined each company and want to make sure that the decision made would generate the most income and employment opportunities for the people of Sparksville, while at the same time protecting Sparksville’s air and water.

The Distribution Center wants to hire on 250 people for work. That doesn’t sound like a lot of people are going to be provided a job. They don’t really have all that much of a plan for water usage and water waste.  It sounds to me like the vehicle washing could have some pretty nasty chemicals in the mix.  With my background in the automotive world, I know that there’s cleaning agents that are definitely not supposed to be just flushed down any drain. It would seem that they do have an air quality plan so air quality shouldn’t suffer. I didn’t get to see any solid numbers as far as emissions of each vehicle, but the representative gave a promise that there wouldn’t be any above “normal” emissions coming from the vehicles and the and they’re to be maintenanced every 20,000 miles.

The Hybrid Car Factorymanufactures hybrid-cars and wants to hire on 1,000 people for work. That sounds like a lot of people are going to be provided a job when compared to the 250 that the other business was quoting.  Hybrid vehicles may help to reduce emissions of greenhouse gas and other pollutants by using electricity as opposed to petroleum. According to Sioshansi and Denholm (2009), hybrid-cars can decrease net generator nitrogen oxide emissions during the ozone season, despite the additional charging load. By adding vehicle to grid services, such as spinning reserves and energy storage, carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxide emissions can be reduced even further.

There were concerns about the amount of pollution created from the production of hybrid-cars.  Opponents  such as Beliveau, Rehberger, Rowell,and Xarras (2010)report that their production consumes more energy and releases more emissions than conventional cars due to the use of advanced materials, such as nickel-based batteries. Lead-based batteries used by the Oil Refinery, would produce 9kgC of carbon dioxide, where the production of a nickel-based battery would produce 24-30 kgC of carbon dioxide, and 215 kgC of carbon dioxide with strictly electric cars. These numbers are significant when considering the impact on the quality of Sparksville’s air and water.

However, the Hybrid Car Factory has a pretty good plan for air pollution. The whole plan of them being able to take the majority of the excess carbon dioxide and have it be redirected into a pooled area where some kind of plant can feed on it is pretty impressive and speaks volumes for their ability to think ahead.  It would seem that the advisor is not happy with having an automotive manufacturing facility in Sparksville.  I think that he might not be the only one with reservations and even if the company is offering a lot of good things for the community, those people will be harder to convince that the company’s presence is a positive and welcome thing.

The Oil Refinery wants to hire on 2,000 people for work. That’s double what the hybrid-car manufacturing company wants to hire and 8 times more than the other business. They have a pretty good plan for water usage and waste control. They weren’t too specific in how that plan is supposed to work, but they did say that they can have quite the already-established plans all over the world and that they would use those same plans in Sparksville. The representative says that they have a good sustainability plan.  The reasoning is because the company believes that fossil fuels will be around for longer than what some sources are quoting and therefore would have a serious vestment in the community.

I’m going to have to choose the hybrid-car manufacturing company’s proposal.  Given that there’s a real need for jobs in the area, I can’t in good consciousness go with the company that’s only going to bring in 250 jobs.  The oil company would bring in 2,000 jobs, but there’s always the chance that their presence could become the next Exxon Valdez or BP Oil spill and that’s a risk that I’m just not ready and willing to take. The risks of having an oil spill are long-lasting and problems with the oil industry extend far beyond air and water pollution.  According to Brewer, Nagshima, Kelley, Heskett and Rigby (2013), “the buildup of methane vapors at petroleum-release sites can also pose potential fire and explosion hazards.”  If an accident with the Oil Refinery was to occur, not only would the environment be devastated, but the negative press could land a financial blow to which Sparksville’s economy may never recover.

Also, one of the emails says that the kid’s mother says that “hybrid cares are for hippies” is only the opinion of someone and that opinion isn’t even on a subject matter that actually matters to whether or not the business should be allowed into our area.

I made the choice to go with the hybrid-car manufacturing facility in the placement and with the settings that I enacted because of many reasons.  First, I made the choice for the placement of the manufacturing facility because when I went to put it in either the forest or by the river, the graphs showed that the plants and people were negatively affected in one way or another.  Second, I went with the decision to put the manufacturing speed into the high-output because there was enough of a demand for the vehicle.  Third, I chose to offer sales deals with the cars because I remembered the letter from the earlier exercise and how the one kid’s momsaid that only “hippies drive hybrid-cars.”  This meant that there would probably be some opposition from the locals of Sparksville as far as liking the care and therefore buying the care as well.  Lastly, these combinations were the only combinations that yielded a completely successful program across all three measuring points: plant life, income, and people’s health.

Now with the benefit of hindsight, I would indeed make the same choice to build the hybrid-car manufacturing facilities in the place that I chose and with the settings that I went with again.  The other two plans were not as successful and had their own little quirks to them.  For example, the option of using the oil company took about 30 minutes to go through all of the choices that I thought should be correct, and then finally come up with something that was at least not going to kill people and wildlife.  Eventually though, I did manage to get all three graphs at about 90% full by the end of the test.  The distribution plant was even worse.  By the time I was finished with it, the graphs were indicating that the income was about 75% full and the other two were at about 60 % full.

The learning objects which were examined with each company were the acceptability of risk, air pollutants, water pollution sources, sources of stream pollution, nonpoint pollution sources, oil spill decline, and oxygen curve.  The Distribution Center had an environmental balance of -1, a business balance of -2, and a social balance of -1. The Oil Refinery did not fare much better.  Their environmental balance was -3, their business balance was 0, and their social balance was -1.  The Hybrid Car Factory had the best scores of an environmental balance of 3, a business balance of 3, and a social balance of 2.  After seeing these numbers, I feel even more confident in my decision to choose the addition of the hybrid cars to this community.

References

Beliveau, M., Rehberger, J., Rowell, J., &Xarras, A. (2010). A study on hybrid cars: Environmental effects and consumer habits. Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Brewer, R., Nagashima, J., Kelley, M., Heskett, M., & Rigby, M. (2013). Risk-based evaluation of total petroleum hydrocarbons in vapor intrusion studies..International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 10, 2441-2467.doi:  10.3390/ijerph10062441.

Sioshansi, R., & Denholm, P. (2009). Emissions Impacts and Benefits of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles and Vehicle-to-Grid Services. Environmental Science & Technology, 43, 1199-1204 doi: 10.1021/es802324j