Can anyone think of a good topic I could write about his summer that involves the environment and statistics that's related to the HCH or the Prius? Something very mathematical/statistical, any help is greatly appreciated?

 

How about doing a statistical analysis comparing people who perpetuate negative hybrid myths to IQ

 

How about a comparison of emissions and gas consumption reduced (environmental savings) vs. the environmental costs of the batteries and other components of the hybrid technology, thus calculating the total savings all things considered. Naysayers are always so quick to point out that we might not be saving the environment as much as we think because these cars have higher up-front environmental costs in the extra batteries and such.

Or how about studying a truly big-picture approach to the hybrid premium cost dilemma. Analyze the extra cost of the hybrid car, and compare it against expected gas and other environmental savings and make a conclusion about whether it really "pays off" or not. Then compare the costs of some other car upgrades that are equivalently priced, like upgrading from a V-6 to a V-8, how much that costs, how much extra gas it will use over the lifetime of the car, vs whatever savings this sort of upgrade might create - shorter 0-60 means less time on the road maybe, calculate the cost benefit of faster accelleration and compare it to the cost of the upgrade and additional gas and pollution.

These hybrid cars are put under extra scrutiny because people think only in financial terms with them. They think that since they save gas then the cost of the hybrid upgrade should be paid back in gas savings. But they never apply that criteria to any other car upgrade, so it's not a fair standard to hold to just one kind of car. Perhaps some research into that and real numbers to justify your findings would serve to educate people about the real cost to benefit ratio from a big picture viewpoint.

Another idea would be to calculate the national cost of our power-hungry approach to vehicles. Determine how much it costs us as a society/economy both in financial terms and in environmental costs. Figure out how much extra gas we consume at 300hp vs 100hp, and how much extra emissions. Some real stats that show how much our "god-given right" to power costs us as a nation. Propose how much we would save by settling for 10-second 0-60 cars instead of putting race car engines in the entire dodge lineup so we can do a 5-second 0-60 in a one-ton truck. Nobody ever questions whether more power is a good thing, but we always question whether friendlier environmental features are worth it. Find some way to quantify both and show a cost comparison of doing it dirty vs doing it clean so we have some way to measure the tremendous waste of all the highly over-powered vehicles we have on the road.

 

Another idea would be to look into biodiesel - diesels do better than regulars on mpg, plus biodiesel is renewable, contains no petrol, and has lower emissions in every category but one. The problem here is that the media treats it as a freak show rather than the viable commercial fuel that it is.

You could evaluate production costs and capabilities, compare the benefits and economic adjustments required to accomodate widespread biodiesel production and usage and see if its really feasible as a large scale alternative to petrol diesel. Naysayers typically point out that we can't produce enough biodiesel to support all our diesel needs. This may be true or not, let's find out first. Also we need to decide if that even matters - replacing any percentage of our petrol diesel usage with a renewable alternative that burns cleaner is a good thing whether we can to a 100% changeover or not.

There's lots of politics in this too that are interesting. The soybean farmers lobby is pushing biodiesel, but soybean biodiesel in particular. Trouble with that is that there are much more efficient crops to make biodiesel out of that are getting ignored because of the power of the soybean lobby. So, while they're trying to do good for themselves they're not really helping the widespread use of biodiesel because they're trying to monopolize on its production when other crops like algae are much better sources of the raw materials.

Other politics involve state requirements on biodiesel percentage mixed in with petro diesel at the pump. this is a great idea, but in minnesota for example, they exempted the railroads and mining companies from the requirement. This basically made the law useless as those are the two largest diesel consumers in the state. So if they're not going to have the ***** to enforce the rule where it can really make a difference, then why bother? I guess it still makes a difference but not where it counts the most.

All interesting stuff to research. Good luck.