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this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2025
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Fuck Cars
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This is why ebikes produce less CO2 per mile than regular bikes. Even if you're getting your electricity from coal, battery and motor efficiency are so much higher than food digestion and muscle movement.
The ebike starts life from the factory with a higher CO2 cost, though, and it never quite catches up over its expected life.
Both are orders of magnitude lower CO2 than a car (both production cost and per mile cost). The lifetime CO2 cost of an ebike vs normal bike is so small, and the gulf between either of those and a car is so big, that anyone pointing to this in favor of cars is an idiot. If an ebike is what gets you to bike more, do it. Any movement from cars and onto bikes is a huge win, battery or not.
I seriously doubt that it would be better "even of you get your electricity from coal".
I did a project on coal plants in college. Our research showed that a single coalplant in Germany (as of 2012). Produced more pollutants in 1 month. Than every single registered vehicle in Sweden combined, over a whole year.
I'm not trying to say driving a car is better If you could take a bike. Don't get me wrong.
I just think you're underestimating just how incredibly bad coal power is.
You would be better off charging your batteries from a diesel generator, than from electricity produced by coal.
Yup, it's better. You're underestimating how inefficient biological processes are and how carbon intensive food production is.
https://eponline.com/articles/2023/01/13/environmental-impact-of-bikes-and-e-bikes.aspx
There are a range of numbers that depend on how you get your power and how you get your food. The high end of CO2 per km traveled for ebikes is the same as the low end for regular bikes.
This doesn't account for all the other terrible stuff coal puts out, of course.
Now, again, the numbers are close enough that it's barely worth quibbling about, but it is a difference.
You are conflating a pure CO2 calculation to a calculation of other, more harmful in the short term, pollutants. Also worth figuring that if all your electricity is coming from coal your farms probably aren't burning clean stuff for power either.
I'm not. There are so many pollutants from coal, besides CO2.
Indeed, but the original point was a pure measurement of CO2 per mile, disregarding all other pollutants and factors.
I'm not sure a diesel generator is much better. In the US, petrol power generation is 2.46 pounds CO2/kwh and coal is 2.31 pounds/kwh. Maybe coal is less efficient in Germany, but I doubt it's significantly worse than petrol.
And there are other negative emissions with oil, like forced methane production (burn, bottle, or release). Though coal has similar issues too (e.g. more radioactive release than nuclear power).
That said, there's a disconnect in our debate. Coal plants are an energy source. Cars and ebikes are an energy load. You can't really say "coal is worse than cars" because you cannot replace coal plant emissions by adding more cars. Similarly, you'll have cars even if you replaced coal with zero-emission renewables.
The argument becomes interesting when you add bikes into the picture. You can replace a large portion of petrol-car kilometers with coal-ebike kilometers and gain far more kilometers traveled per kilo of CO2. This argument can also be extended for emissions related to calories in acoustic bike kilometers.
The "per mile" in "ebikes produce less CO2 per mile" is critically important to the argument.
There are, like you said. A lot of other pollutants than just CO2. Focusing on the CO2 only, is a huge disservice.
The point of our project was simply to show just how bad they are. We often hear that we should skip the car and take a bus for the environment. And while I agree that we can all do what we can.
It's like fighting a forest fire by pissing at it. While someone else is literally, dumping coal on the fire.
I don't have the research infront of me. It was a long time ago. But I know the pollutants from coal, was astronomically worse than any other form of power generation.
But regardless if an ebike is powered by coal is worse or not. It is a moot point. The solution isn't to stop using bikes. The solution is to stop using coal.
And on that, I think we agree.
Just because I burn less calories on an e-bike doesn't mean I consume less calories, just that I get fatter faster 🤣. All that fat will still turn into CO₂ once I start to decompose.
OTOH, if I get fatter, I'll probably start decomposing earlier, so you might be right that in the long run I'll save on CO₂.
We just need to calcify you for long-term storage to reduce your decomposing CO2 release
Well, the other part of it is the Exercise Paradox. See elsewhere in the thread for that discussion.