http://www.torontocra...

E-Bikes are not zero emission
July 31st, 2008
I cannot handle anymore people getting on the radio and telling me that E-Bikes are zero emission. They are not. If you believe that they are you also believe that gas is organic as it comes from fossils.

Some 40% of the electricity used to recharge those E-Bikes comes from nuclear power plants and about 12% from coal fired generators. What would you rather have? Some spent fuel rods, an open container of gas or a smelly cyclist living on your living room couch? Your E-Bike might not be spewing out crap in front of you but it is creating emissions where its power is being generated.

Yes, I get it. E-Bikes emit far far less than a car. Just do not call them zero emission. Its a damn lie.

These percentages for sources of electricity depend on where ya get yer electricity from... In places like Quebec and British Columbia the percentage from hydroelectric sources is much higher. And of course ebike energy can also come from sources including wind and solar and geothermal... Folks in Toronto already have options like Bullfrog where they can buy electricity that is 100% from renewable resources...
Bullfrog Power here:
http://www.bullfrogpo...

The blogger omits to acknowledge that ebikes (electric motors and electronics) are extremely energy efficient compared to the options. They travel with no empty seats for example. Some controllers provide regenerative braking that can recapture some energy otherwise lost in mechanical brakes... While modern motors can spin up to over 80% efficient (and well over 90% in state-of-the-art designs) there are efficiency losses in the electronics (controller and charger and wiring and batteries) such that an electric vehicle *as a system* might be about 50% efficient.

The modern pedal bicycle is extremely efficient. Even a cheap bike can reach over 90% efficient... But the "motor" (human body) is only about 20% efficient at converting food energy to pedaling... So at 20% times 90%, the pedal bike *system* is only perhaps 18% efficient...

The blogger also omitted to mention that the real "pollution" output of an electric vehicle is their spent batteries. I see these rather like the tailpipe exhaust of an ICE machine (Internal Combustion Engine) except that the exhaust is produced as bricks of material that CAN be recycled versus the tailpipe exhaust that is blown into the air we breath and condenses on cold pavements to be washed into our drinking water...

And the blogger also overlooks the food energy required to pedal a bicycle, its source and the waste that is produced as sewage and packaging...

Toronto bicycle couriers consume about 2000 calories a day more than the average diet in the commission of their work pedaling as much as 100kms in a day.

Here is a chart provided by the International Kicksled and Scooter Association:
http://www.iksaworld....

A kilocalorie chart:
Activity:....................... tempo:........ Kcal: Kjoules:
1 hour sit.......................... -.............. 75.... 315
1 hour walk................. 3 km per hour.... 150.... 630
1 hour walk................. 6 km per hour.... 375... 1575
1 hour bike........ tour... 20 km per hour... 600... 2520
1 hour bike........ fast... 30 km per hour... 750... 3150


The cost of this food energy depends on which food source the calories come from. Toronto bike couriers are "paid" $15 a day as a tax credit to recognize a portion of their diet as a cost consumed to earn their income.

An ebike travelling 100kms in a day might only consume 50 cents of electricity to cover this distance...

In 2004, National Geographic magazine reported that "...a pound of beef takes three-quarters of a gallon of oil to produce"

What they meant was that our modern foods have a high content of hydrocarbons consumed to manufacture artificial fertilizers from natural gas, to operate farm machinery, store and transport over long distances, process, package and market, cook and dispose of waste packaging...

While the food energy used to pedal a bike is heavily soaked in oil, the exhaust stream also includes sewage that is pumped into our drinking water and packaging some of which goes to landfill or incinerator...

Yes, ebikers get it. Pedal bikes emit far far less than a car. Just do not call them zero emission. Its a damn lie.

tks
Lock

As always, great info Loc!!

I wish more people would look at the big picture (or should I say the real picture), rather than believing all the miss-information and myths being propagated (is that a word).

Eric

http://www.torontocra...

E-Bikes are not zero emission
July 31st, 2008
I cannot handle anymore people getting on the radio and telling me that E-Bikes are zero emission. They are not. If you believe that they are you also believe that gas is organic as it comes from fossils.

Well, actually gas is organic. That CO2 we're putting into the atmosphere started there and so we're just returning it to where it came from. Environmentalists throw use words in a lot of strange ways. Whenever I see "organic" fruits and vegetables, I always wonder if that means that the other fruits and vegetables are inorganic?

Hehe... I am so glad we haven't got into a climate change debate here yet

As I understand it the problem with CO2 emissions isn't the fact that they are there (after all, it's what plants breath) but the rate at which this "reserve" is being released... Millions of years of it in just a couple of centurys...

I am more "old school" about things and prefer to concern myself with the pollution that I can see and taste and smell... The massive chemical loads being introduced into our land and water and air. I understand that gasoline can have up to 1000 different compounds in it... The leaky way the whole gas vehicle system operates. That when our pavements get wet all those glistening rainbow puddles of drip from vehicles washes straight into our drinking water...

Surely everyone has seen this


I actually got into EVs not from an interest in electric *vehicles* but from an interest in electric *vessels*. The oily sheens on the water around harbour moorings and fueling docks... The fact that much of the pollution off the NA eastern seaboard has been traced to runoff from transportation.

Tks
Lock

Just to play devils advocate this all sounds like semantics to me.

It is true that E-Bikes emit Zero Emissions. This is a fact.

However you are correct Lock in saying that making the bike and getting it here has its own environmental concerns.

Now how do we address this?

Unfortunately there is no easy answer. In truth our capitalistic society and the corporations in control of things need to change along with our attitudes. Free trade is the biggest cause of pollution on the planet. Ever since mass manufacturing left North America and companies have switched to manufacturing/production in China (and other countries) the carbon foot print of the products we buy have made a major mess on our planet which we are starting to see the real impact now. Transporting these bikes and parts from over seas does no good.

What we need to do here in Canada is manufacture ourselves locally. Companies should not be going to China to aquire these bike parts to asseble, re-brand and sell to the masses. While this is being done, we as environment conscious citizens should understand that doing the right thing means paying the extra cost for products to the manufactured locally. By doing this we ensure jobs for ourselves and each other. This will also ensure a much higher quality product not mention service is able to be done quickly and locally. Now unfortunately so far from what I can tell there are not any companies manufacturing an entire power assisted bike in Canada (if anyone does know of any do share!)

With all this being said its no easy answer. I for one though am glad to have a bike that's not putting any extra emissions into the atmosphere.

What we can at least do is speak out to our community, lobby our MP's and work towards changing things locally. The attitude change has to start at home first.

The Energy Cost of Electric and Human-Powered Bicycles:

http://www.ebikes.ca/...
tks
LoKc

http://opim.wharton.u...

The Biking and Environment Paper: "The Environmental Paradox of Bicycling," Working Paper, The Wharton School, Department of Operations and Information Management, July 2006.

Direct link to the pdf for download:
http://opim.wharton.u...

Abstract
Substituting bicycling for driving is frequently promoted as a means of reducing energy consumption and the associated degradation of the environment. This paper estimates the magnitude of this effect. The analysis takes account of the first-order effects due to the dramatically lower energy requirements of transportation by bicycle relative to automobiles. The environmental benefits of human power are, however, strongly coupled to the environmental costs of increased population, due to increased longevity of those who engage in physical activity. Paradoxically, increased use of human power for transportation is unlikely to reduce substantially the use of energy because of this second-order effect. Humanpowered
transportation is therefore less an environmental issue and more an issue of public health. The interplay
between longevity and environmental impact is a central feature of the conflicting societal objectives of improving human health and increasing environmental sustainability.



lOCk