4 ms·

Sorry, it's very hard to even conceive the constraints and abstractions under which a bike would be worse for the environment than driving. First and foremost,

by jablan 13y ago

Sorry, it's very hard to even conceive the constraints and abstractions under which a bike would be worse for the environment than driving. First and foremost, riding a bike relies on sustainable energy (grow, eat, repeat). Cars are still far far away from being remotely sustainable. Car vs. bike discussion may have (some) sense when it comes to commuting distances, adverse weather conditions etc.

VLM 13y ago
All purchased food relies on unsustainable energy sources and nearly all food relies on unsustainable fertilization and other petroleum derived products. I have a super minimalistic garden and grow some of my own salad vegetables in the summer but I'm under no illusions and 99% of my food calories come indirectly from crude oil and natgas. My car doesn't burn biodiesel and isn't made of soy. The store is illuminated and HVAC by natgas and coal. The delivery truck from the warehouse doesn't burn biodiesel and isn't made of soy. The warehouse burns lots of coal for its HVAC and lights. The trucks delivering to the warehouse don't run on biodiesel and aren't made of soy. Assuming produce and not "processed food-like substances" the farm uses diesel to run the tractor and other gear, some coal powered electricity in the greenhouse, fertilizers made of phosphates dug out of the ground (what to do when they run out?) and nitrates made by the haber process outta lots of natgas. Also there may or may not be herbicides / pesticides / fertilizers made out of crude oil. If your food is cheaper per "gallon" than diesel, its at least theoretically possible to make it with biodiesel and be net energy positive. If it takes 20 gallons of diesel equivalent environmental damage to make a gallon of walnut oil, then if you poured walnut oil into a biodiesel tank the system would rapidly run dry and halt. Computer science types have a stereotype where the "halting problem" can't be solved for them so it can't be solved anywhere, although energy calculations are actually pretty simple (yes yes I know totally different type of halting its a bad joke). If (Energy Returned) is less than (Energy Invested) then the only way to keep pumping food out is to burn crude oil to make up the difference. Depending what axe you have to grind, EROEI of food varies from 0.1 to 1. The truth is probably within that range, perhaps 0.3. A pound of fat (animal hydrocarbon, basically) is worth 3500 or so calories so the environment is better off if you burn two pounds of gasoline than if you eat a pound of food (aka equivalent of 3 pounds of diesel burned to make it) and bike the same distance.
- jablan 13y ago
  Are you seriously suggesting that I polluted more by cycling to work (for the extra food that I had to ingest) than I would if I drove instead? Can you point me to some reading material which would prove that? Thanks.
  - VLM 13y ago
    I don't have enough datapoints but its quite possible. One big problem is the EROEI of food varies so much. Kobe beef flown in by air from Japan as a bicyclist fuel is likely to be vastly worse than driving a typical car, yet eating home grown vegetables is likely to be better than driving a V8 crew cab pickup truck. No debate there. Are you better off eating a little more factory farmed chicken on factory farmed rice fried in chemical plant produced psuedo-oil, or burning gasoline, well there's a debatable area. You'd do best to google for EROEI and related terms. Warning that all reports in the field are highly politicized, so you need to average the archived stuff on theoildrum showing a 0.1 with some multinational megacorp astroturfed greenwashing campaign claiming a 10.0 EROEI. There are no unbiased academic textbooks I'm aware of. Its all "The Peak Oil Myth Debunked" or the "Partys over" book and "Crude awakening" movie and there is nothing in between. Generally the pessimistic treatments do a good job of science and engineering and math and do a bad job of politics, economics, PR and emotional response. And the optimistic treatments do the obvious swapped topics. So if you critically read both and pay attention appropriately, you'll come out with the best of both (try not to mess up and end up with the worst of both sides LOL) For just one book, you could do worse than read Kunstler's emergency book. Not because its perfect or even because I agree with all of it, but because it is extremely content dense WRT listing the many inter-related systemic problems. It makes at least passing mention of almost all issues, and at least one sides thoughts about it, regardless if you agree or not. I don't think the "other" side has anything near as information dense, that I know of.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  2 pounds of gasoline is about 1/3 of a gallon. So a charitable 20 miles of car range. 3 hours on a bike at a somewhat moderate pace isn't going to be more than 2000 kcal. Of course, animal fat is like 10 times less efficient than directly eating the vegetable calories. I guess an electric car that recycles well might end up beating the bicycle though.

by jablan 13y ago

VLM 13y ago

All purchased food relies on unsustainable energy sources and nearly all food relies on unsustainable fertilization and other petroleum derived products. I have a super minimalistic garden and grow some of my own salad vegetables in the summer but I'm under no illusions and 99% of my food calories come indirectly from crude oil and natgas. My car doesn't burn biodiesel and isn't made of soy. The store is illuminated and HVAC by natgas and coal. The delivery truck from the warehouse doesn't burn biodiesel and isn't made of soy. The warehouse burns lots of coal for its HVAC and lights. The trucks delivering to the warehouse don't run on biodiesel and aren't made of soy. Assuming produce and not "processed food-like substances" the farm uses diesel to run the tractor and other gear, some coal powered electricity in the greenhouse, fertilizers made of phosphates dug out of the ground (what to do when they run out?) and nitrates made by the haber process outta lots of natgas. Also there may or may not be herbicides / pesticides / fertilizers made out of crude oil. If your food is cheaper per "gallon" than diesel, its at least theoretically possible to make it with biodiesel and be net energy positive. If it takes 20 gallons of diesel equivalent environmental damage to make a gallon of walnut oil, then if you poured walnut oil into a biodiesel tank the system would rapidly run dry and halt. Computer science types have a stereotype where the "halting problem" can't be solved for them so it can't be solved anywhere, although energy calculations are actually pretty simple (yes yes I know totally different type of halting its a bad joke). If (Energy Returned) is less than (Energy Invested) then the only way to keep pumping food out is to burn crude oil to make up the difference. Depending what axe you have to grind, EROEI of food varies from 0.1 to 1. The truth is probably within that range, perhaps 0.3. A pound of fat (animal hydrocarbon, basically) is worth 3500 or so calories so the environment is better off if you burn two pounds of gasoline than if you eat a pound of food (aka equivalent of 3 pounds of diesel burned to make it) and bike the same distance.

jablan 13y ago
Are you seriously suggesting that I polluted more by cycling to work (for the extra food that I had to ingest) than I would if I drove instead? Can you point me to some reading material which would prove that? Thanks.
- VLM 13y ago
  I don't have enough datapoints but its quite possible. One big problem is the EROEI of food varies so much. Kobe beef flown in by air from Japan as a bicyclist fuel is likely to be vastly worse than driving a typical car, yet eating home grown vegetables is likely to be better than driving a V8 crew cab pickup truck. No debate there. Are you better off eating a little more factory farmed chicken on factory farmed rice fried in chemical plant produced psuedo-oil, or burning gasoline, well there's a debatable area. You'd do best to google for EROEI and related terms. Warning that all reports in the field are highly politicized, so you need to average the archived stuff on theoildrum showing a 0.1 with some multinational megacorp astroturfed greenwashing campaign claiming a 10.0 EROEI. There are no unbiased academic textbooks I'm aware of. Its all "The Peak Oil Myth Debunked" or the "Partys over" book and "Crude awakening" movie and there is nothing in between. Generally the pessimistic treatments do a good job of science and engineering and math and do a bad job of politics, economics, PR and emotional response. And the optimistic treatments do the obvious swapped topics. So if you critically read both and pay attention appropriately, you'll come out with the best of both (try not to mess up and end up with the worst of both sides LOL) For just one book, you could do worse than read Kunstler's emergency book. Not because its perfect or even because I agree with all of it, but because it is extremely content dense WRT listing the many inter-related systemic problems. It makes at least passing mention of almost all issues, and at least one sides thoughts about it, regardless if you agree or not. I don't think the "other" side has anything near as information dense, that I know of.
maxerickson 13y ago
2 pounds of gasoline is about 1/3 of a gallon. So a charitable 20 miles of car range. 3 hours on a bike at a somewhat moderate pace isn't going to be more than 2000 kcal. Of course, animal fat is like 10 times less efficient than directly eating the vegetable calories. I guess an electric car that recycles well might end up beating the bicycle though.