I came across an interesting article describing the total environmental impact of the uber politically correct car the Prius. In general, I've always like the idea of recapturing kinetic energy and converting it to potential energy but knew there were inefficiencies and there were always downsides to batteries. The article is quite a good read but I also looked at the source of the zinc for the batteries on Google maps which was kind of awesome that you can see the environmental damage from satelite photos. Check out the smokestack at the zinc mine in Sudsbury Ontario Canada. Zoom out to see the affected area.