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A human burns say 2000 kcal / day. That's about 2.3kW hours / day. An iPhone 16 pro battery appears to have about 18 watt hours. So approximately 100x less t

by jlebar 2y ago

A human burns say 2000 kcal / day. That's about 2.3kW hours / day. An iPhone 16 pro battery appears to have about 18 watt hours. So approximately 100x less then a human uses.

tsimionescu 2y ago
Oops, you're right, I misremembered some basic facts here...
- ethbr1 2y ago
  I remembered there was some analogy about a person doing some work walking, with an average diet, versus using an internal combustion engine. In terms of carbon emissions. The engine came up more favorably. Turns out, eating any meat and industrial agriculture transportation are really heavy.
  - ranger_danger 2y ago
    This sounds like a false equivalency to me... why are you comparing humans and their support networks... but the engine doesn't also get the same comparison? What about the factories that make them for example? All the gas station infrastructure etc.?
    - ethbr1 2y ago
      Here's one of the studies from the period: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y
  - jlebar 2y ago
    I think you may be thinking of the question, "how much greenhouse gas does it take to move a human X miles if they are self-powered versus using an ICE?" For example this study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y. > our estimates suggest that the net emissions associated with the ‘fuel’ required for driving, walking, and cycling may be comparable in some settings With the caveat that they're looking at *per-mile* emissions, and nobody in the developed world is walking 60 miles to and from work every day. However there's an important clarification to your recollection. - You're correct that eating meat (and dairy) is very carbon-intensive. - You're not correct that agricultural transportation is significant. It doesn't even make it into the paper above, as far as I could find. Agricultural transportation, even things like flying blueberries to California from Chile, is negligible compared to the carbon cost of food. You can see that in the following graph. Red is transport. You have to look closely even to see it. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

by jlebar 2y ago

A human burns say 2000 kcal / day. That's about 2.3kW hours / day. An iPhone 16 pro battery appears to have about 18 watt hours. So approximately 100x less then a human uses.

tsimionescu 2y ago

Oops, you're right, I misremembered some basic facts here...

ethbr1 2y ago
I remembered there was some analogy about a person doing some work walking, with an average diet, versus using an internal combustion engine. In terms of carbon emissions. The engine came up more favorably. Turns out, eating any meat and industrial agriculture transportation are really heavy.
- ranger_danger 2y ago
  This sounds like a false equivalency to me... why are you comparing humans and their support networks... but the engine doesn't also get the same comparison? What about the factories that make them for example? All the gas station infrastructure etc.?
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Here's one of the studies from the period: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y
- jlebar 2y ago
  I think you may be thinking of the question, "how much greenhouse gas does it take to move a human X miles if they are self-powered versus using an ICE?" For example this study https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-66170-y. > our estimates suggest that the net emissions associated with the ‘fuel’ required for driving, walking, and cycling may be comparable in some settings With the caveat that they're looking at *per-mile* emissions, and nobody in the developed world is walking 60 miles to and from work every day. However there's an important clarification to your recollection. - You're correct that eating meat (and dairy) is very carbon-intensive. - You're not correct that agricultural transportation is significant. It doesn't even make it into the paper above, as far as I could find. Agricultural transportation, even things like flying blueberries to California from Chile, is negligible compared to the carbon cost of food. You can see that in the following graph. Red is transport. You have to look closely even to see it. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local