>I have a friend who insists that 'birth to grave' is the ONLY proper argument, and he then concludes that USED is the only legitimate purchase and the OLDER THE BETTER. His conviction is that no new car need be made at all while they're (basically) all similar in terms of environmental/fossil fuel characteristics.
>He argues that ethanol is a stupid idea (if people only knew hoe much energy it takes to produce the stuff). Same, he argues, for hydrogen. When I counter with 'well if solar or wind were used in production of either your argument goes out the window' he says "Sure, when someone actually does that".

They actually do, in Iceland, using thermal energy to produce electricity, then electrolysing water to produce hydrogen. Oxygen is also a nice byproduct.