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Electric bikes are the most climate-friendly way to travel - Triangle Blog Blog
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this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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it's probably hard to calculate the difference in energy used between battery and manual since people have such different diets. edit: to clarify I mean energy it takes to charge a battery vs grow and ship food.
Very true, but I had a bunch of other areas of skepticism too when I saw that asserted. It assumed everything you needed for riding was extra energy requirement, ignoring the fact your metabolism burns a whole lot just sitting still, and doing X calories of exercise work doesn't mean you need kX extra food calories (k being whatever multiplier for our body's metabolic efficiency rate).
The data I saw also only considered the electricity used, ignoring the cost of manufacture, decommissioning and disposal.
It also ignored that most of us need to find ways to exercise in our lives, and if we avoid it for transportation we need to find it elsewhere - they certainly don't include the energy cost of working out at a gym or going for a run ;).
It's just my estimation, not hard reasoned data, but I just can't believe that considering the totality of the system, ebikes have lower energy use than an unassisted bike. But ebikes are still way better than any personal motor vehicle option.