The world turned on its head - stop eating! Don’t walk! Ride …. Electric….

2manyoranges

2manyoranges

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Actually it’s true. I do eat an additional cheese sandwich when I ride to work. Drat. I still hate ebikes hassling me on inclined singetrack though…(see earlier post)….

This is very interesting addition to the discussion….

www.bikeradar.com

How green is cycling? Riding, walking, ebikes and driving ranked

Could cycling help tackle the climate crisis?
www.bikeradar.com www.bikeradar.com

I worry about what I hear about lithium extraction and refinement:

www.euronews.com

South America's 'lithium fields' reveal the dark side of electric cars

Demand for lithium-ion batteries is unprecedented - but is mining the chemical harmful to the environment?
www.euronews.com www.euronews.com
 
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Well….MT….if I walked the 10 miles to work I think I would be pretty hungry when I got there. I don’t do that.
However I DO cycle 10 miles to work. I then have a cheese and pickle sandwich.
When I go in the car I fancy a cheese and pickle sandwich but only out of habit, and don‘t have one.

This seems to corroborate the analysis in the article.
 
Interesting articles. I note that the BikeRadar article works with estimates from Duke University to the effect that manufacture of an aluminium road bike frame creates 250 Kg CO2e, whereas a similar carbon fibre frame is thought to produce 67 Kg. That's very much at odds with Trek's figures in their industry-leading sustainability report (available here: https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en_US/sustainability/) which suggests that their carbon fibre Madone frame is the source of significantly more CO2e than the aluminium Marlin frames (pp 5-7). I think I'll give a shout out for Reynolds here, too: today, all Reynolds steel tubing is made out of recycled material: https://www.reynoldstechnology.biz/company-butted-steel-tubing/our-environmental-impact-study/ However, I don't know how much that lowers the environmental impact of a steel frame made out of Reynolds steel tubing in comparison with non-recycled steel.

Additionally, because I've been thinking about buying a new bike, I've been searching for sustainability statements from bike manufacturers, and there are surprisingly few. Of the twenty-three companies I've looked at, I would say that three are serious about their own sustainability (Trek, Cotic and Starling), a handful have taken a few worthwhile measures (e.g. Scott and Cube), some have vague statements (e.g. Marin), but the vast majority have no published sustainability statement at all (e.g. Giant, Merida, Cannondale, GT, Orange, Ribble...) However, prolonging the life of an existing bike, à la Retrobike, is almost certainly the most environmentally friendly cycling option.
 
CA - yep that's what I recall re carbon from this article on the research study commissioned by Starling.

singletrackworld.com

Starling claims carbon produces 16 times more CO2 than steel

A report from Starling is the result of a deep dive into how it runs as a business and how it can operate more sustainably.
singletrackworld.com singletrackworld.com

Ti is very grim since it needs a whole host of steps to its refinement and fabrication into alloy.

Titanium is processed by means of the Kroll Process. The process was invented in 1940 by William Kroll. The raw ore is reduced with petroleum derived coke in a fluidized bed reactor at 1000°C. The mix is then treated with Chlorine gas, producing titanium tetrachloride. Then the TiCl4 is reduced by liquid Mg at 800-850°C in a stainless steel retort.

2Mg +TiCl4 --> 2MgCl2 + Ti

The resulting material is a porous sponge of Titanium. The material is leached to purify, then crushed. The material is melted in a consumable electrode vacuum arc furnace. Titanium is often re-melted to remove inclusions and to make sure of its uniformity. This whole process is which raises the price of Titanium substantially.

from: https://people.uwec.edu/jolhm/Student_Research/Craft/titanium.pdf
 
I think I did raise this wrinkle in the last ebike thread you started... 🤣

TBF, there are lots of oddities like this eg sometimes better to get rid of old appliance (including all of the additional manufacturing emissions for the new one). This can be counter-intuitive - and the research somewhat specific in the conditions where it holds true. For example, washing dishes by hand turns out to be more carbon intensive than using a dishwasher, but only because there's an assumption that handwashing will use running hot water rather than fill a bowl (and I don't know anyone who does that!). Plus most of my hot water is generated by our solar panels so they can **** right off again. I suspect research like that simply allows middle class greens to assuage their conscience.

I tend to be an old school greeny in that I like to use as little as possible for as long as possible (although will happily admit I have my blind spots).

Incorporating other negative externalities such as mining and its impact on communities, end of life recycling etc, longevity etc may mean an intervention reduces carbon, but is still extremely crap for the planet and its people. Aluminium mining ain't great, for example:

Aluminium production & environmental impact

Aluminium is used widely in construction. Windows, doors, framework. Most Aluminium is recycled - saving large quantities of energy
www.greenspec.co.uk www.greenspec.co.uk

We are collectively using our planet's resources in a manner which means your kids (and their kids) - if you have any, are likely to face difficulties we didn't. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if they want to give future generations the finger or not. The flipside is that crisis is the mother of invention, but even here - I think the systems level change and collective thinking required to get from here to where we need to be might be beyond us as a species. But doubters have been proved wrong in the past...
 
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It's a well known statistical fact that statistics are used to push agendas that suit the parties involved

Then there's 'green washing' which is a bit like putting a big tarpaulin over a lithium mine whilst filming a shiny advert for a Nissan Leaf

This has been discussed on RB many times, the 'facts' often changing with the seasons.

Personally, and at a speculative guess, I doubt there's any more than a percentage of a percentage of the world's manufacturers that actually give two shits about their processes and the environment

30 years ago we were recycling and trying to save our environment, that's 3 generations of kids growing up yet nothing has really changed

Oh and for a bit of fun, look up what happens with knackered wind turbine blades! (yes, there are startups but nowhere near enough yet)

www.wind-watch.org

Not so green energy: Hundreds of non-recyclable fiberglass wind turbine blades are pictured piling up in landfill

Incredible photos have revealed the final resting place of massive wind turbine blades that cannot be recycled, and are instead heaped up in piles in landfills. The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the repository of at least 870 discarded
www.wind-watch.org www.wind-watch.org
 
I doubt there's any more than a percentage of a percentage of the world's manufacturers that actually give two shits about their processes and the environment

Sooner or later they're going to have to: they'll find it more and more difficult to get financing as investors 'reward' companies with stronger ESG stories with lower interest on loans; insurers will charge them higher premiums to cover their environmental risk, and supply-chain partners will shun them because their scope 3 emissions figures will suffer.
 
greencat said:
I think I did raise this wrinkle in the last ebike thread you started... 🤣

TBF, there are lots of oddities like this eg sometimes better to get rid of old appliance (including all of the additional manufacturing emissions for the new one). This can be counter-intuitive - and the research somewhat specific in the conditions where it holds true. For example, washing dishes by hand turns out to be more carbon intensive than using a dishwasher, but only because there's an assumption that handwashing will use running hot water rather than fill a bowl (and I don't know anyone who does that!). Plus most of my hot water is generated by our solar panels so they can **** right off again. I suspect research like that simply allows middle class greens to assuage their conscience.

I tend to be an old school greeny in that I like to use as little as possible for as long as possible (although will happily admit I have my blind spots).

Incorporating other negative externalities such as mining and its impact on communities, end of life recycling etc, longevity etc may mean an intervention reduces carbon, but is still extremely crap for the planet and its people. Aluminium mining ain't great, for example:

Aluminium production & environmental impact

Aluminium is used widely in construction. Windows, doors, framework. Most Aluminium is recycled - saving large quantities of energy
www.greenspec.co.uk www.greenspec.co.uk

We are collectively using our planet's resources in a manner which means your kids (and their kids) - if you have any, are likely to face difficulties we didn't. I'll leave it to the reader to decide if they want to give future generations the finger or not. The flipside is that crisis is the mother of invention, but even here - I think the systems level change and collective thinking required to get from here to where we need to be might be beyond us as a species. But doubters have been proved wrong in the past...
Click to expand...
Yep. The BikeRadar article does tend to focus on one type of negative externality (CO2 emissions) and that gives the 'surprising' upshot that a carbon fibre e-bike might be the most environmentally friendly type of bike!

My feeling is that good quality steel bikes, probably around the middle of the market, are likely to be the most environmentally friendly. Higher end bikes have more work put into them to make them lighter weight, and usually use carbon or titanium these days. Cheap BSOs have parts that perform badly, don't last, and tend to be heavy, all of which waste resources (including extra cheese sandwiches required to maintain the energy levels required to pedal the damn things). A bike that strikes a good balance between performance, durability, and resource-efficiency is probably made of good quality steel. The irony (or market failure) is that a carbon fibre bike can now be had for less than a steel equivalent: Vitus Zenium complete bikes in CF start at less than the price of Ribble's CGR, frameset only, in Reynolds steel. I expect that some e-bikes can be bought for less, too. I guess that's an indication of the extent to which negative externalities, or unpaid-for real costs in other words, are not being factored into actual market pricing. And that's one screwed up market.
 
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