Not really. BUT... it is a discussion I don't remember us having on here.
A friend was telling me that the process for extracting and processing elements like lithium for ebike and electric car batteries is highly, highly damaging to the environment. I have read this piece on lithium extraction, but am no closer to understanding what aspect is damaging.
In any case, I just wonder if, in the rapid advance toward a more electrified - as opposed to fossil fuel-based - society, we aren't just replacing one substantial problem for another.
In the end, is it possibly our constant quest for technological solutions to "problems" that only sort of exist (or shouldn't be seen as problems at all), that keeps doing us in, as opposed to the solutions we actually come up with?
In other words, are ebikes and electric cars just another false panacaea, and shouldn't we just stop consuming so much stuff?
Yes.
We **** about with nature far too much. Nature will find a way to punish us.
Remove humans from the planet and it'll be a much better place .
**** me. Here we go again. 😔
Yh sod ebikes and the want to produce them to flood shop floors however my want for Ti needs to continue ...
🤣 Muhahahaha
Remove humans from the planet and it’ll be a much better place .
At last, someone else who seems to understand the problem!
**** me. Here we go again. 😔
& why not? is it not a problem?
A ****ing great big one?
I read somewhere that the Lithium only constitutes 1% of the battery!
Society going electric won't cure all the planet's ills but I think that over all it's for the good.
Huge sums going into researching new battery technologies and it would be great if they are environmentally better but I suspect that might not be the case.
Still, electric over petrol and diesel (if the leccy is generated in a sustainable manner), hell yes.👍
Nature will find a way to punish us.
Never!
it isn’t just car and bike batteries. It is all lithium batteries.
A friend was telling me that the process for extracting and processing elements like lithium for ebike and electric car batteries is highly, highly damaging to the environment.
From what I've read, the process needn't be damaging, it's just that the deposits occur in countries that don't give a shit.
Better to have an e-bike than to have an e-car - by a long way. Utilitarian e-bikes for getting people around towns and cities and even for getting people from villages (often very car-dependent) into towns or cities and back home again as a commute or for shopping is relatively very green compared to driving an e-car or worse. Electric cars weigh around 1,500 to 2,000 kilos of metal, plastic and all sorts of nasty components. And they pollute the air with PM 10s and 2.5s. E-bikes only weigh 15 to 20 kilos.
Bikes are bad for the environment FACT
So really what we're saying is that Thanos had the right idea!!
As above, the problem isn't lithium mining done well, it's lithium mining done badly that's the problem.
Photographs of open cast mines are great PR for Greenpeace but realistically are only temporary. That gaping orange hole in the rain forrest will be a lake in 100 years time and disappear back into nature.
And lithium is a massively abundant element in the earths crust. We won't run out. The batteries are also recyclable so you only need to mine to meet new demand, unlike fossil fuels which need a constant supply in perpetuity. So while the number of mines will increase over the next 50 years, that's a trend that needn't and won't go on forever.
Bikes are bad for the environment FACT
I actually did sone maths on a similar thread a year or two ago to show that actually commuting to work by bike wasn't as greenhouse has friendly as you'd think.
By the time your food has been transported to your house by plane, train and automobile cycling actually still emits about 50gCO2/km just from the extra calories.
Now there's potential to grow your own or only eat food that was farmed without a tractor or car or fertiliser or anything and get it down a lot. But realistically it's pretty bad!
Bring on the batteries.
Also worth knowing that a battery powered car does about 70% usefull* work. A hydrogen fuel cell powered car does about 20%.
*Kinda, poor word choice as in if you put 100kWh into the grid and transported it to your car you get about 70kWh to use to move it uphill, heat up the brakes and push air out of the way.
By the time your food has been transported to your house by plane, train and automobile cycling actually still emits about 50gCO2/km just from the extra calories.
Surely this assumes that prior to cycling you were only eating just enough calories to get you through the day without cycling.
I'm guessing most westerners could fit a good bit of cycling in every day without having to increase their calorie intake at all.
Don’t hate the eBike. Hate the rider.
(not really, was joke. i love them all 😁 )
Just to be clear, we aren't seriously suggesting that riding a bike or ebike is bad for the environment??
Just to be clear, we aren’t seriously suggesting that riding a bike or ebike is bad for the environment??
No. It's still less than half the emissions of even the greenest cars. I was just surprised that it wasnt closer to zero.
Surely this assumes that prior to cycling you were only eating just enough calories to get you through the day without cycling.
I’m guessing most westerners could fit a good bit of cycling in every day without having to increase their calorie intake at all.
Also true. But for fairness I assumed a steady state. The car driver doesn't get credit for being on a diet either.
Presumably everyone here is posting on a desktop computer?
But for fairness I assumed a steady state.
Arbitrarily a steady state of obesity, though, not a steady state of consumption.
Show me someone who starts the year at 20 stone, takes up cycling to work and back every day, and ends the year at 20 stone…
Have you accounted for the reduced emissions needed for ambulances, delivery of medical supplies, insulin production…? 😉
That gaping orange hole in the rain forrest will be a lake in 100 years time and disappear back into nature
Errrr, apart from the toxic run off having killed the freshwater ecosystems in the area, with bioaccumulation of mercury, teratogenic solvents or whatever shit they're using to strip out ore (more gold, REE and copper than lithium in this instance) that is....
Just to be clear, we aren’t seriously suggesting that riding a bike or ebike is bad for the environment??
Ah, reminds me of an old thread of mine...
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/environmental-impact-of-cycling-to-work/
I think the biggest flaw with TINAS argument last time Was it assumed a high level of intensity from the cyclists as it was based on his Strava data. Probably accurate for cyclist types on here but for Joe public pootling in in his rigger boots and padded hi Viz on his rusty chained cube with a Rollie in his clopper the calories per km would drop away rapidly
Bit none of this means we should hate e bikers less.
The bastards
Never mind lithium extraction, it’s the length of modern hyperlinks that will kill this planet. ^^^
By the time your food has been transported to your house by plane, train and automobile cycling actually still emits about 50gCO2/km just from the extra calories.
Climate change is a scam to trade CO2 quotas:
Child labour in cobalt mining linked to phones, cars and probably e-bikes now (2017 report)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/this-is-what-we-die-for-child-slaves-made-your-phone-battery
No. It’s still less than half the emissions of even the greenest cars.
Erm.... You seem to have included the transport and production cost of your "fuel" but not that of the car. How much CO2 is emitted to dig up, refine and transport a litre of petrol?
In fact, I think I remember reading that there's so much electricity used in petrol production that you'd go further if you simply used the same electrical energy in an electric car. Which makes petrol a single use, C02 emitting battery. Madness.
Panasonic are already on the verge of cobalt free batteries as are Tesla
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/17/teslas-cobalt-usage-to-drop-from-3-today-to-0-elon-commits/
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/06/09/cobalt-free-car-batteries-in-the-works-for-panasonic-tesla/
There's only one thing for it... Non-electric, human powered bikes with an aero 1000T sprocket. 😉
Any product made by any process (natural or industrial) will involve an environmental impact arising from that process. Whole lifetime analysis of the impact of any product is really difficult. For example a few years ago we wouldn't have placed much weight on the impact on the environment of waste plastic, now it is a big concern. Similarly the water used in producing cotton has relatively recently become an issue. A look at the full impact of almost any product is likely to be a bit scary, but without a comparison it isn't much use.
ETA also the human and social costs of making and disposing of stuff have recently also come under the spotlight (and rightly so).
No. It’s still less than half the emissions of even the greenest cars.
Erm…. You seem to have included the transport and production cost of your “fuel” but not that of the car. How much CO2 is emitted to dig up, refine and transport a litre of petrol?
In fact, I think I remember reading that there’s so much electricity used in petrol production that you’d go further if you simply used the same electrical energy in an electric car. Which makes petrol a single use, C02 emitting battery. Madness.
As well as the huge environmental impact of producing a car - almost immeasurable when you try to break it down.
Greyspoke hit the nail on the head 👍
My brother sent me this video last night... how I loLeD.
There's a thousand things you could add to that calculation on either side, what if the mechanic at your lbs drives to work, who has to pay for that co2?
It's a fairly simple calculation based on eating some extra potatoes and everyone already having a bike and a car in the garage. It doesn't in any way show that bikes are worse than cars or even close. All it shows is that actually it was a lot further from zero than anyone expects (as evidenced by how upset and passionate a lot of people get about it).
Yes cars have an embedded environmental impact, but that exists whether I use it or leave it to rust on the driveway. Yes harribo is more energy dense and lower co2 per calorie than potatoes. Yes if you eat any meat to get calories then the result swings massively (being vegan would save about 4000g/co2 per person per day). Yes you can account for the co2 emitted during refining and transporting fuel (about 18%).
So really what we’re saying is that Thanos had the right idea.
Yes.
Presumably everyone here is posting on a desktop computer?
Laptop here. Smaller footprint.
Just to be clear, we aren’t seriously suggesting that riding a bike or ebike is bad for the environment??
Well... it basically is.
But I think we should be clear if you want to be as binary as 'good' or 'bad' pretty much everything humans do would fall into the 'bad' category.
The truth is its a sliding scale from most to least impactful, and perhaps we could all stand to look at the bigger picture and the associated environmental impact of all of our activities not just pick the couple of things we do that we think are a bit less damaging and claim we're doing our bit...
You can try to minimise your environmental impact, as things stand today anything that genuinely does that will almost certainly cost you time and/or money, for real change to take place that economic relationship to the environment needs to be reversed.
You can try to minimise your environmental impact, as things stand today anything that genuinely does that will almost certainly cost you time and/or money
The single biggest contribution you can make is to not have children. That would save you a sh!t load of money. 2nd as I understand it is surprisingly not to eat meat, which I don't think would have much of an impact on your finances either although probably more time consuming.
Cookeaa summarizes it well there. Spot on.
Yes, everything has an impact and yes it's all complicated because of all the counterfactuals and interactions that could be considered.
You can say riding has a bigger impact than we'd like to think due to the extra calories, yes. But it's not so bad if you're eating minimal levels of animal products and processed packaged stuff. We need to sort the food system and cultural norms around meat to minimise the impact of cycling.
Same goes for driving. How many people on here drive, say, 100 miles a weekend for a ride? (Possibly in a van?) Probably quite a few. It doesn't matter how low impact cycling is if it entails a shitload of driving.
How many people would be more tempted by doorstep riding if they had an e-bike? God knows, but in those cases e-bikes could be a good thing. Again though, that's assuming the only other option is driving. Better still, pick up a secondhand gravel bike, ride from the doorstep more, drive only for special MTB occasions or try to get a train.
Basically we need massive changes in how we do everything in modern societies if we are to avoid ecological collapse (or at least soften it). There's no reason biking shouldn't be part of this, even if the impact is relatively small.
Damn, to save the planet, I was going to set up an ebike riding human eradication domesday cult - looks like that idea has been ruined, these battery things are just not green enough. A walking around in wool pants death cult looks like the only truly green option available. Better get rid of my mobile phone, watch, tv remote etc etc as well. Down with these pesky humans.
By the time your food has been transported to your house by plane, train and automobile...
You can reduce that impact by filling your panniers with shopping on the way home.
Presumably everyone here is posting on a desktop computer?
Well, if you could get a phone that was purely pedal powered, I’d get one.
Here’s the thing… replacing journeys by car with ebike journeys absolutely is part of the solution, not the problem. I’ve been saying since the C5 that battery and pedal powered combos should be in use by every household… the use cases fit someone in just about every house in the UK.
However, replacing the purely pedal powered enduro machine, that hangs on the back of your car as you drive to the trails, with something rechargeable and only partly (even if mostly) pedal powered, is part of the problem, not the solution.
Ebikes are great, but only when you replace car journeys with them are they a net improvement environmentally. Of course you can do this with your e-mtb, and many do. But if you get one and still drive just as much… well… don’t convince yourself you’re helping the planet in any way.
