21–30 of 46 posts
I assume it's the same for elevators? "Save the environment, take the elevator"?
I assume it's the same for elevators? "Save the environment, take the elevator"?
human: 1.2 (0.9) kcal/floor ascending (descending) [0, 1] elevator: 2.5 W•h/floor [2, 3] Let's assume 15 floors since otherwise you'd probably save time walking. The article suggests a grid efficiency of 50% and a motor efficiency of electric e-bike motors as 75%. It looks like elevator motors are actually more efficient (increasingly so as more people are loaded) [4]. It's only about 5 percentage points higher, so f…
Not many people would consider walking 15 floors either up or downstairs. Actually many people pant heavily when climbing (from their point of view) 3 floors to my place.
> To travel one kilometre by bike requires approximately 5-15 watt-hours (w-h) of energy, while the same distance requires 15-20 w-h by foot, 30-40 w-h by train, and over 400 w-h in a singly occupied car. Since the rise in popularity of electric cars 400wh/km is actually quite high. Most electric vehicles are rated city/highway 15/20kwh/100km (150 w-h/km / 200 w-h/km) On this page: https://forum.abetterrouteplanner.c…
Interesting! > The above figures were all produced by assuming average or typical cases. To be fair, it is entirely possible for a bicycle rider to deliberately eat only locally grown and unprocessed foods. In that case, the ratio of primary energy to food calories is closer to 1:1 (Günther 3). Combined with a metabolic efficiency of 25%, this increases the human energy efficiency to 1:4, slightly better than the lit…
People eat a lot and exercise to lose weight. They don’t eat to only replenish expended energy. They over consume then often compensate with exercise. So a particular rider might eat more or might eat the same regardless of whether they pedaled or they used electric power.
Personally I eat about the same whether I drive or bike, just ride to avoid getting fatter.
The major downsides are: weather extremes (that are going to be more common). The bike is generally heavier (much more effort to get it into the building or onto a bus).
And of course, the biggest one of them all - you are now vilified by both car drivers and pedestrians, while taking on more risk than either one. And of course suburban sprawl being the center-point of US culture, anywhere takes too damn long to get to even on an e-bike.
It's unfortunate that the US isn't more dense, which would make an ebike an ideal mode of transport in ~80% of cases.
Interesting! > The above figures were all produced by assuming average or typical cases. To be fair, it is entirely possible for a bicycle rider to deliberately eat only locally grown and unprocessed foods. In that case, the ratio of primary energy to food calories is closer to 1:1 (Günther 3). Combined with a metabolic efficiency of 25%, this increases the human energy efficiency to 1:4, slightly better than the lit…
But that’s an ideal case. People eat a lot and exercise to lose weight. They don’t eat to only replenish expended energy. They over consume then often compensate with exercise. So a particular rider might eat more or might eat the same regardless of whether they pedaled or they used electric power.
Some diets aren't as efficient as others though. Feeding corn to cows then eating the cow meat is going to be vastly less efficient than eating the corn directly for example.
The author lost me at the assumption that humans on electric bikes eat less than humans on pedal bikes. Personally I eat about the same whether I drive or bike, just ride to avoid getting fatter.
It's apparent when they stop doing exercise and they gain ton of weight until they adjust their diet again. Usually that requires concious effort.
My buddy seen that when he quit judo.