This has to be satirical
Unfortunately it does not have to be satirical. We have this idiot professor of economics, Reiner Eichenberger, in Switzerland who calculated the same kind of shit for an article in a business newspaper (Handelszeitung).
He said an efficient car using 5 l or 12 kg CO2 per 100 km with four people is more efficient than a cyclist who needs 2500 kcal per 100 km, so they have to eat 1 kg of beef which emits 13.3 kg CO2. Therefore the people in the car are 4 times as efficient per passenger kilometers.
People got quite cross, there were replies by other professors in other magazines to tear him and his shitty assumptions to shreds.
Or at least a dig at someone being overly pious. My brother for a while was unbearable about his 2 x EVs saving the world while living in a city with at least 6 public transport alternatives within 100m
Absolutely. It’s quite funny.
I am Dutch, have 0 cars, 2 bicycles, and I’m perfectly happy with it. I’ve only recently came across the first situation in which I felt like car access would be usefull.
A couple I’m friends with were pregnant and they don’t have a car either, but since they wanted to be able to go to the hospital quickly and indepently, they rented a car for a week or so. This would’t work for me because I don’t have a drivers license. People often ask me ‘but what if you need to do this or that…’ and never do I feel like they’re pointing towards a problem that I have. Just some minor inconvenience, if one at all. But in this case I thought, yeah if my wife were pregnant it would be damn usefull to be able to transport her by car, by myself. If it ever happens I’m sure we’ll find a solution though. But I found it interesting that it was only the first situation in which it actually seemed usefull to me to have car access.
If the the Dutch are so climate couscous maybe they should invent energy-free travel
No one tell them how many calories are in a tank of gas
That’s cute. No other personal vehicle beats the caloric efficiency of a bicycle, and it’s not even close. They’re very literally one of the most impressive feats of engineering that human kind has ever invented.
Electric bikes are more efficient one.
I couldn’t believe how little energy I used to cycle the 35 mile round trip to work on an ebike, it’s bonkers
Aren’t electric bikes stupidly dangerous though?
how? the electricity in them just assists you in pedalling up hills and stuff
Per mile, there are more fatalities, but in the US, something like 39/40 deaths from bicycles and 4/5 deaths from motorbikes is due to cars; presumably decreasing the number of miles driven by car would lower the number of pedestrian, bike, and motorbike fatalities they cause.
That depends on a whole bunch of factors. Maximum velocity is a big one. In Germany (might be EU, not sure), motor assistance is capped at 25km/h for the vast majority of e-bikes (there are some that go to 45, but they are not allowed on bike lanes), which I find to be a decent compromise between safety and speed.
Age plays another role, in that e-bikes allow older people to cycle, whose reaction times or other capabilities may be worse than average. Some training might be required to adjust to the unfamiliar power, too. But I’ll take an elderly cyclist over elderly SUV drivers any day.
And then there’s the infrastructure. Biking can be anywhere from outright suicidal to very safe depending on the existence and state of proper bike lanes. This is the biggest difference between places like the Netherlands and let’s just say elsewhere.
Alright, I’ll take the bait. Let’s do some recreational math
This web page contains average passenger car fuel efficiency broken down by year. The most recent year available is 2016, so we’ll use that: 9.4 km/L or 22.1 miles per gallon. A gallon of gas has about 120MJ of energy in it. So, an average car requires about 120,000,000 / (1/22.1) = 5.4MJ per mile
This web page has calories burned for different types of exercise. I separately searched and found that the average adult in the US weighs around 200LBS, so we’ll use the 205LBS data, and I’m going to assume that “cycling - 10-11.9 MPH” is representative of the average commuter who isn’t in too much of a hurry. That gives us 558 calories per hour, or 55.8 calories per mile (using the low end of the 10 to 11.9mph range). That’s equal to about 0.23MJ per mile (as an aside, it’s important to note that the calories commonly used when talking about diet and exercise, are actual kilocalories equal to 1000 of the SI calories you learned about in school.)
Moral of the story: an average bike ride consumes around 20x less energy than an average drive of the same distance.
Holy shit what kind of cars does that study take into account/what type of vehicles do people drive‽ (Granted I do not know how fuel [in-?]efficient worries/trucks are but O.o)
And yes I am aware that 2016 is 9 years ago now, but I know I am driving badly when my car consumes slightly more than half as much fuel as this average and I am rapidly thinking about just how much money some people/companies are spending on gas!
We also gotta keep in mind that cycling makes people healthier, so it has that benefit, and that it can also potentially replace some exercise people would be doing otherwise, in which case you’re basically moving for free since you would have expanded those calories anyways.
You mean I don’t have to drive to the gym anymore if I cycle to work?
Worth noting that cars can fit more people in them than bikes can.
So with that in mind, clearly the true moral of the story is that clown cars are the most efficient method of travel.
Every type of anti-environmental person seems to just have no grasp of numbers as a concept. I worked in wind for a while and one coworker was a guy taking a break from the oilfield. He really thought he had something when he was like ‘golly is that an oil based lubricant? in a supposedly green energy? hyuk hyuk looks like oil isn’t going anywhere.’[this is barely an exaggeration he was a walking caricature of a hick] Just absolutely 0 ability to perceive a difference between burning 100 gallons a day of something vs using 10 gallons a year.
Similar vibe to “you claim to be vegan and yet you eat bread, and some field mice probably got killed when harvesting the wheat to make it. Checkmate, I’ve just invalidated your entire belief. Why aren’t you ordering the steak now?”
This actually would be an interesting study.
First thought is this is sublime shithousery.
Trains are very energy efficient. Is this person advocating for putting trains on every road?
Ohh noooo. I guess if it’s the only way.
Haha lol, assuming people in cars count calories and or operate on minimal / in a deficit. Regardless of the car argument, people riding bikes are more likely to be counting calories and in a calorie deficit, as they’re more health conscious. People driving cars wouldn’t care as much, on average, and would consume more calories than necessary, probably triple the “cycling” extra calorie needs. Omfg. I could debate either side, if I had to, that’s the stupidest take I’ve ever heard. It holds absolutely no water. Where’s the data showing people in cars consume less food / calories.
I’m pretty sure overweight tommy incel the reddit mod eats more than twice what I eat and has never touched a bike in his life
And yet cyclists still consume less per day than that 400 lb dude in an F150.
You don’t get it, a healthy menu consumes much more volume of food that needs to be transported, per capita. Imagine if everyone ordered a head of lettuce instead of a sneakers bar. How many lettuce trucks we’d need??? It’s just not sustainable.
My cabbages!
Now imagine what this guy would eat he was cyclist. Checkmate again. You libtards are so easy to burn.
Sounds like a boon for that fat guy’s local economy
We’re more energy effiecient than cars.
That used to be true. But modern cars with modern engines have better thermal efficiency than humans.
This is from a purely thermal efficiency standpoint. Not taking any environmental factors into play.
Right since as soon as you start looking into how that car was made and how the energy that ends up in those batteries is produced, the legs win again.
Look. I don’t know what you think you mean. But you’re clearly not talking about thermal efficiency.
Thermal efficiency is a measurement of how much energy goes into work, and how much is wasted through heat.
Muscles will never beat an engine. Combustion or otherwise.
The fact that we “used to be” is a huge caviat, giving humans the best case scenario against the vehicles worst case. The moment we start to put in some effort to performing work, our thermal efficiency goes down, significantly.
That’s ok… thermal efficiency isn’t what you should be worried about.
Yup, but cyclists not carrying a ton of metal and plastic is also a factor.
That when Cyclist tags in their match buddy, Train.
Yes, cars’ physics might be more efficient, but when a ton of car is being used to carry just a single person, it becomes inefficient for the job.
Couldn’t really find any sources, but honestly it sounds reasonable enough. Engines are way more specialized for their single mechanical task than our legs are.
Of course you also move around way, way more weight most of the time. The mass/payload ratio is way worse with cars than with bikes so the comparable thermal efficiency would need to be greater to make up for that.
Beyond being a curiosity it is a moot point anyways. Humans need exercise to be healthy, and as you said, there are other environmental factors like car construction, gas refinement, etc. That I imagine mostly favour bikes too.
Thermal efficiency is purely a measurement of how much of the energy you put in, goes to actual work, and how much is wasted through heat.
Mass only plays a part in that thermal efficiency might change depending on the load the work is performed on.
I can’t think of a single engine that have better thermal efficiency than an electric one. (Not taking into account how the electricity was produced)
You’re right about it being a moot point. There are far more important aspects than simply thermal efficiency. I just wanted to set the record straight. Because saying humans have better thermal efficiency than cars is just not true. Not even close.
We evolved sweat for a reason. Our thermal efficiency is so bad we had to develop external cooling or we would overheat.
So, e-bikes for efficiency, then?
While this is probably true (I have no idea, so I just gonna trust you on that one) its still pretty stupid if someone would bring that as an legitimate argument
Agreed.
This is…certainly a take.
It’s not a take. It’s factual. Thermal efficiency is a measurement of how much energy is wasted through heat rather than being used to perform work.
Muscles are fantastic in many ways. But what they’re not. Is thermally efficient. That’s ok.
You know you’re on the right side when you’re arguing against humans exercising more!
They’re always more concerned about being right, instead of correct. :p
