E-bike environmental impact in comparison to other forms of transport
E-bike environmental impact in comparison to other forms of transport
I editorialised the title as the original was clickbait, but the video itself is quite good. Interestingly, e-bikes are claimed to have lower emissions than acoustic bikes, although it likely depends on diet (the author didn't specifically compare a vegan diet between the two types but did indicate that vegan + electric is the most carbon efficient form).
Ok, so i am not a native speaker of english, so excuse my questions....
Whats an acoustic bike?
And if an E-bike runs with electricity, the acoustic bike runs when i scream at it?
33AAAAAAAAAAA!!! MOVE DAMMIT!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
10Oh, so cars are acoustic too! At least in traffic jams
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Another term for a non electric bike. Like electric guitar and acoustic guitar. No idea why you would call it that, but it's only used in a smal circle of enthusiasts.
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sorry. Im not going to buy that someone with a horrible diet on a standard bike is going to be less environmentally friendly than an e-bike. This is just a smell test thing. I will accept that e-bikes could beat out public trans or such and that some folks might do an e-bike where they won't do a standard one. Including those with bad diets who might not be able to handle to much of a workout and even great in shape folks can go farther or go to places and arrive in a condition appropriate to what they are going to with an e-bike.
17Given the immense footprint of certain foods I can believe it.
6yeah but you have to take into account relative effect in how much more of that bad footprint food they will eat vs what they will eat anyway. The difference is minimal.
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Diet is a huge component of most people's footprint. If you start biking 12 hours more a week (how much I would need to if I wanted to switch from my ebike to my acoustic for commuting*), you are going to eat a lot more. If a significant amount of those calories is coming from the standard beef you'd get at a US supermarket, its no surprise you'd be better off using a coal-charged ebike at similar speeds**. So much fossil fuels go into producing that. Tomatoes are worse than chicken apparently though.
*I'm not in good enough to bike at work in under 1.25 hours multiple days in a row and still be in good enough condition to do my job, especially if there are headwinds.
2That is just patently false. You will eat slightly more. The majority of everyones calories goes toward keeping your heart beating and existing. It takes an extreme amount of working out to shift that needle and two hours of cycling won't do that. If you have access to a public gym with the equipment that can track calorie burn go see how much it takes to burn 100 calories. Body builders with extreme workouts can double their calorie intake but that is way more than some extra hours cycling. This is why when I did the napkin math I found the standing desk with relaxing over lunch will burn more calories than sitting and walking vigorously during my lunch.
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The arguments between the two certainly can get complex easily. In the end, either option is well ahead of cars and at least in the same ballpark as rail. And I think that's the most important takeaway, that bikes are an incredibly efficient form or transport, and at the least e-bikes are a good option for those where a normal bike would be (or perceived to be) too much effort.
I'll add the video does consider non-carbon environmental related effects to be worse with e-bikes compared to normal bikes, which makes sense because of the battery. But hopefully that will get better over time with the move away from cobalt and other rare earth minerals, and an increase in recycling of batteries.
2I agree that the comparison between the two is quite complex (given the many side effects). But I was interested in this question and have done a few back-of-the-envelope calculations on the ongoing CO2 emissions:
Regular Cycling:
- The caloric consumption of cycling is approximately 2300 kcal / 100 km [1]. Or 2.7 kWh / 100 km.
- The CO2 footprint of 1 kcal is approximately 1 (vegan) to 3 (meat-heavy) gCO2/kcal [2]. The average is approximately 2 gCO2/kcal.
- This yields 2.3 kgCO2 / 100 km for a vegan diet and 4.6 kgCO2 / 100km.
- The result is in the same ballpark as the Guardian article [3] at 2.5 to 3.5 kgCO2/100km.
- The 96 kgCO2 for production [3] would correspond to 0.5 kgCO2/100km over the 19200km lifetime [3].
(Motor-only) E-bikes:
- The energy use is about 2 kWh / 100 km (3.3 kWh per 100 miles) [4].
- But pedal-assisted commuter e-bikes only use 0.7 kWh / 100km (1.1 kWh per 100 miles) [4]??
- This also seems quite high compared to the 2.7 kWh / 100 km above, given that human muscles are only about 30% efficient [6].
- With the US carbon intensity (0.368 kgCO2/kWh [5]), this yields 0.736 kgCO2/100km.
- This result is much lower than the Guardian article [3], probably because it doesn't include manufacturing.
- The 165 kgCO2 for production [3] would correspond to 0.86 kgCO2/100km over the 19200km lifetime [3].
Based on this, it seems quite plausible that an E-Bike is significantly more efficient than a regular bike, even if the rider is a vegan. But, both are way better than all types of cars and even public transport.
References
- [1] https://www.canyon.com/en-ch/blog-content/advice/calories-burned-cycling/b24062022.html
- [2] https://bitsabout.me/en/the-carbon-footprint-of-your-diet/
- [3] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2021/sep/23/why-arent-more-big-bike-firms-tracking-their-environmental-impact
- [4] https://sites.google.com/view/ebikestudy/results
- [5] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electricity?country=~USA
- [6] https://www.germanjournalsportsmedicine.com/fileadmin/content/archiv2017/Heft_9/Standard_EN_Boening_Wirkungsgrad_Muskelarbeit_9-2017.pdf
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Remember, you can offset carbon emissions by buying more carbon fiber bikes :)
12Just don't crash them, bump them in the wrong spot... Or really, peer at them too intently lol
Yee-yee, aluminum frame gang (with carbon fork).
4Only thing I've broken on my acoustic carbon bike was my shoulder. Oh, and I snapped a pretty new chain once trying to pedal when the light turned green (which I think also messed up one of the teeth on the crankset).
3Yeah, I've heard a lot about the fragility, but I've been happy, and the only real scratches are on the (carbon) wheels.
A torque wrench is mandatory though, unlike a steel bike where gorilla strength is probably ok!
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As a non native English speaker, why is it "acoustic" bikes? What does acoustic have to do with bicycles?
9its a play on words of the 2 main types of guitars (electric and acoustic) Basically a joke implying that if one type of bike is electric, the other must inherently be acoustic.
28It's e-coustic, actually.
4A lot of us native English speaking cyclists wonder the same thing.
3My buddy calls them "naughty" bikes, as in "not e". I think it's cuter than acoustic.
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Yeah, the i hate the title so much for a very informative video, but i guess it's the kind of title that will lure the uninformed one and potentially change their mind.
9But you have to trust they would actually watch the video and not just read the title.
2I knew it would go over poorly if I left the original title here (and rightly so) but maybe it is a good fit on YT to reach more people. Know your audience and all of that.
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But what if those vegans eat a lot of beans? Those methane farts are killing us!
9CCS will save us.
Also, the answers are all in the Arch Linux wiki.
7Glad we cleared that up.
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As a non native English speaker, why is it "acoustic" bikes? What does acoustic have to do with bicycles?
0