I love my e-bike. I am about to pass 20,000 miles of riding since 2017, most of it commuting (80%). I calculate that this has saved about 4 metric tons of emissions, determined using the mileage of my Prius, and that I charge from solar panels. (Going into the embodied carbon of all this would take a book, but it is easy to see that a bike has far less than a car!) Though I recently retired at 70, I still ride to town, which is 8 miles away, in the hilly country of the Shenandoah Valley. I would not do it on a regular bike. Safety is a concern, but in a smaller urban area it is relatively easy to avoid major roads. However, we still make mistakes in design. Most accidents happen around intersections. We mark our bike lanes between intersections and end them before the right turn lanes (if they exist) start. Good planning would start bike infrastructure with intersections, not leave them for last.
Because they are so efficient, biking produces less carbon than walking. This would be from the indirect emissions from agriculture producing the additional calories your body needs for walking or cycling. I have a hard time believing it, but there is even a 2016 report from Europe that claims e-bikes produce less carbon than walking.
Trolls are getting clever, I got a notification that my comment was Liked, by a guy using the last name of a demon competitor to Yahweh. You can't assume good-faith public participation anymore.
I love in Montreal. I am all for e-bikes and I have an annual pass for our Bixi system. But wouldn't the source of the "e" be important when calculating emissions? I know they will still be far lower, but if your "e" comes from coal, let's say, that might be different than if your "e" is solar, right?
The amount of electricity they. use is so small that I don't think it would make much of a difference. I did a study of this but cannot put charts in here, but you can fill 300 ebikes with the electricity charging one F-150 Lighting, so the electric pickup might be a problem but the bike isnt much of one.
I love my e-bike. I am about to pass 20,000 miles of riding since 2017, most of it commuting (80%). I calculate that this has saved about 4 metric tons of emissions, determined using the mileage of my Prius, and that I charge from solar panels. (Going into the embodied carbon of all this would take a book, but it is easy to see that a bike has far less than a car!) Though I recently retired at 70, I still ride to town, which is 8 miles away, in the hilly country of the Shenandoah Valley. I would not do it on a regular bike. Safety is a concern, but in a smaller urban area it is relatively easy to avoid major roads. However, we still make mistakes in design. Most accidents happen around intersections. We mark our bike lanes between intersections and end them before the right turn lanes (if they exist) start. Good planning would start bike infrastructure with intersections, not leave them for last.
Because they are so efficient, biking produces less carbon than walking. This would be from the indirect emissions from agriculture producing the additional calories your body needs for walking or cycling. I have a hard time believing it, but there is even a 2016 report from Europe that claims e-bikes produce less carbon than walking.
This presupposes a civilized world, of public transit and micromobility.
But you're in Canada, so maybe it is so.
Trolls are getting clever, I got a notification that my comment was Liked, by a guy using the last name of a demon competitor to Yahweh. You can't assume good-faith public participation anymore.
(Sorry, Lloyd. I hope it is just a U.S. thing.)
I love in Montreal. I am all for e-bikes and I have an annual pass for our Bixi system. But wouldn't the source of the "e" be important when calculating emissions? I know they will still be far lower, but if your "e" comes from coal, let's say, that might be different than if your "e" is solar, right?
The amount of electricity they. use is so small that I don't think it would make much of a difference. I did a study of this but cannot put charts in here, but you can fill 300 ebikes with the electricity charging one F-150 Lighting, so the electric pickup might be a problem but the bike isnt much of one.