Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Dr. Willie Soon; Bloomberg Green advocating voluntary poverty and a return to 19th century transport solutions, to solve the great climate crisis.
It’s Time to Treat E-Bikes Like Vehicles
As gas prices surge, electric bikes — especially cargo models that can carry kids and groceries — could be replacing car trips and saving fuel. Why won’t federal officials promote them?
By David Zipper 15 March 2022, 22:00 GMT+10
With gasoline prices surging following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, U.S. elected officials are trying everything from gas tax “holidays” to dipping into the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserves to placate drivers worried about overstretched budgets. The Biden administration has suggested that long-term salvation lies in dumping gas-powered vehicles entirely: “When we have electric cars powered by clean energy, we will never have to worry about gas prices again,” the White House recently tweeted. “And autocrats like Putin won’t be able to use fossil fuels as weapons against other nations.”
In the meantime, Americans are rediscovering classic fuel-saving habits, like opting for smaller vehicles or taking transit. But one promising approach is all but absent from policy discussions: shifting car trips toward increasingly popular e-bikes and e-cargo bikes, which run on pedal power augmented by rechargeable batteries. It’s an omission that speaks volumes about how underappreciated battery-boosted bicycles remain in Washington, even among the most climate-friendly politicians.
…
Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-03-15/the-electric-vehicles-we-need-now-are-e-bikes
What a sad, small minded vision of the future – the United States of America withering into a nation of energy impoverished peasants.
What happened to reaching for the stars, flying automobiles, a life a leisure and luxury that even the emperors of old could never have aspired to?
Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with people choosing to ride an e-Bike. I used to ride bikes for leisure, until an injury stopped me. But riding a bike should be a choice, one of many options, it should not be a choice which is forced on us because we cannot afford anything better.
Wealth is choices. You can choose to ride your e-Bike. But if you are wealthy, you can also choose to drive your automobile, without worrying about the cost of fuel.
Poverty, the opposite of wealth, is having your choices limited by cost, feeling constrained by fuel and energy you can no longer afford, living small lives with a limited outlook, like a bunch of medieval peasants tilling the land for our betters. Or like 19th century wage slaves working like battery hens in their warehouses, packaging or producing the products which make them wealthy.
Going by the number of private jets which clutter our airports during climate conferences, our “betters” have no intention of giving up any of their privileges. There is no reason any of us should fall for their climate falsehoods and give up any of our privileges, while they laugh in our faces.
The current sky high price of fuel and energy is totally fixable. All our politicians have to do is get out of the way, and let our entrepreneurs drill for the oil we so badly need at this time. Supply and demand. Up the supply, and the price will drop, as it did under President Trump.
If and when some technical genius comes up with a better solution than fossil fuel, we’ll listen. My only loyalty to fossil fuel is convenience. But living small lives and accepting substandard solutions because we can’t afford better is not a vision of the future I want to embrace.
Until that day something better is available, start drilling, and stop messing with our lives and stop inflicting needless misery on ordinary people like ourselves.
Inflicting torment on the peasants is the goal. The hoi polloi should know their place.
Speaking of ebikes, watch this video of a tormented person with one on fire….
https://mobile.twitter.com/TjbTiffany/status/1503774400088350722?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1503774400088350722%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwaynedupree.com%2F2022%2F03%2Felectric-scooter-catch-fire%2F
Be patient for it to come up
Ebikes will definitely cure …
Global Warming
Food shortages
Housing shortages
Energy crisis
Because they would be easily stolen, they would be recharged in living rooms and bedrooms overnight killing people from the battery fires
Decreasing food demand
Decreasing housing needs
Decreasing future energy demands
Decreasing CC activists
You have to admit the light intensity, the pattern of flying sparks, and full color spectrum of the battery fire was spectacular and frightening to behold. Both increasing as time elapsed.
The e bike owner’s response was like a scene out a Charlie Chaplin keystone cops movie from the 1920’s scrambling around in his under wear…. Plus he feeds the blaze twice by slipping and throwing an object into it and then opening the sliding patio door providing a draft of Oxygen.
Obviously he had not prepared ahead of time. Would a home fire extinguisher been of any value in putting out the fire?
Very dangerous event.
Wow. That is one hell of a video!
Good God! And The They want US to use that crap? Maybe they should do so first?
I suspect new “green” houses will be built with a detached garage … that might not last long.
Are you sure that wasn’t a The Three Stooges gag? Watching the guy run around in a panic reminded me of the kitchen scene in “A Plumbing We Will Go.”
I guess those business trips from one coast to the other are going to take a bit longer for participants to arrive in this new e-bike world.
Have you every had a fire in your apartment? I doubt if you would do much better.
Nope, although in my life I only lived in an apartment for about 5 years, in my early 20s, before I started owning my abode.
How did you start a fire in your apartment to get the experience? Was it a candle?
Tom Halla, OUR place is about 20 steps above the level of the Hoi Polloi, who should be required to follow their own advice well ahead of us.
I think I’ll stick to using equine transportation. You get several benefits out of it: horse manure, good for the garden; reliable transport; a warm, loving nose right next to your face in the barn; and peace and quiet, with no lethal planet-killing gases being released.
with no lethal planet-killing gases being released.
________________________________________
I’ll bet you any amount of money that your horse emits methane farts which if you’ve been paying the least little bit of attention, methane is around 85 times more powerful than CO2 at trapping heat. Your statement is 100% unadulterated bullshit. You would do well to get yourself re-educated in matters of the science of “Climate Change.” Is there anything in the preceding that you don’t understand?
It’s guys like you that will cause my grandchildren and yours to end their days in an anthropogenic created death environment that could have been avoided if you only got on board with electric cars, solar panels and eating tofu.
All animals are ‘carbon’ neutral
All life is Carbon Based
Except, perhaps, for a few extremophiles
You need a mental health professional to help with your issues. Then you can take some math and science courses and reanalyze “climate science”.
Oh, gollibill, are you having a bad day, Stevey? You can’t recognize sarc/ unless it is so labeled?
What’s YOUR personal volume of methane released when YOU fart, huh? Had any beans lately?
I added “…and eating tofu” instead of (/sarc) just to see how many down votes, I would get from people who don’t read all the way to the end. Besides that I thought I did a bang up job of imitating and exaggerating the usual screed from our friends on the left.
You need to study the saturation peaks of Infra Red absorption spectra of Atmospheric GHG’s recorded over EM frequency/wavelengths, realize IR Energy absorbed by GHG is limited by amount of IR emitted by the sun- which is relatively constant and independent of changes in GHG concentrations per se- see how much the peaks of individual GHG IR absorption spectra over lap with those of water vapor, thus in a sense competing with the IR energy quanta of given frequency and read about the vanishingly tiny fraction of the atmosphere that methane represents, a near nullity in an absolute sense, especially when compared to proportions of water vapor and the other major gases.
Increasing methane from animal emissions is a such a non-issue that I wondered at first if you were being sarcastic. But your comment is a revealing tell of its own.
Dr William Happer and a co author have written a recently published scientifically rigorous, peer reviewed paper and model on the subject available elsewhere on this web site; and others have presented video lectures on its contents, the theoretical model compared to satellite recordings, and its conclusions in TWTW posting a few weeks ago: one of which deals specifically with your misconceptions about “the power of methane” to absorb IR, correct in itself in isolation, but wholly wrong went considered in light of the other atmospheric GHG variables presented by Happer and other scientists.
I love my horses too, but are you not aware Sara that the internal combustion engine came along just in time to save cities disappearing under the mountain of horse poo their method of transportation was producing daily?
OH, yes,, well aware of horse-drawn trollies in the cities as well as the corpses of dead draft horses that had to be dealt with, while kids played on them. Before that, in the Regency period in England, horses were used to pull cabs (labeled hackneys, hence the “hackney” horse and pony breeds) and the problem of keeping the cobblestoned streets clean was even worse. In the early 19th century in England, there were steel rails laid on specific routes outside of cities, for draft horses to follow, to pull heavy loads to market. The railroads grew out of that, and motorized trollies and streetcars took the the place of horse-drawn passenger rail cars in cities like New York.
And since self-propelled vehicles replaced 4-leggers, the problem of dealing with horse poo evaporated. Now we have truck and POV exhaust to deal with, and, per the Greenbeaners, the entire planet is on fire, but they can’t tell you exactly where, only that we have to stop using modern vehicles and return to the Days of Yore. Do they want us girls to start wearing corsets, hoops and 7 petticoats again?
Michael Bloomberg began his career as a loudmouthed, uninformed, professional liar (a/k/a “salesman”) peddling crap to gullible fools for Salomon Brothers (see Micheal Lewis’ Liar’s Poker).
Fifty years later, he’s still a loudmouthed, uninformed liar peddling crap to gullible fools.
I wonder if Mr Bloomberg or any of his many staff ever use cars – until they stop then why should the rest of us ?
He does – he just doesn’t drive them or pay for the gas
and the bike range is very dependent on the weight of the rider and topography. well worth getting if it will suit your lifestyle, as very many journeys are of a short duration. bikes lose their attraction of course when it is windy, rainy or its dark, but they have their place.
Small electric cars also h
I worked for Mr. Bloomberg in the ’80’s … I had several unpleasant personal interactions with him during that time … he was a small minded fool then … nothing has changed …
Bloomberg (6 homes, 3 private jets ??) grew up in Brooklyn, the mayor of New York with a high density population — ie when New Yorkers start using E Bikes then maybe Bloomberg Green can lecture the rest of us. Otherwise keep your hypocritical mouths shut.
Trump’s impersonation of Bloomberg standing at a microphone is comedy gold.
If Bloomberg was to ride one of his e-bikes, would he be able to reach the peddles?
Ha
but…but…mean tweets…
I used to think that when people started suffering shortages they would question CAGW. I wonder lately whether I was wrong and people will quietly accept poverty as inevitable.
They haven’t seen the full impact yet. Also, the MSM has been pushing CAGW for decades so it’ll take a shock to get past that.
I had an electric bike years before they become fashionable and charged it with a solar panel going into a lead battery. it was great fun but always ran out of power at the foot of a steep hill and the bike range is very dependent on the weight of the rider and topography. well worth getting if it will suit your lifestyle, as very many journeys are of a short duration. bikes lose their attraction of course when it is windy, rainy or its dark, but they have their place.
Small electric cars also have their place and have the advantage of keeping you dry. This is a tint 2 seater that will retail in the UK at around £7000 a third of the cost of the next cheapest EV
Here is the Citroen Ami electric car-Press ‘play’ for a 20 minute review.
https://www.electrifying.com/reviews/citroen/ami/faq
Walking has its place, so does driving a large Suv, pick up or an ‘ordinary’ car. All sorts of transport are needed to fulfil different transport needs. With the sharp increase in fuel prices-at least here in Europe-I guess that people will look again at electric cars, although as a first or only car-because of their expense-they have many downsides.
tonyb
I use an old fashioned man powered bike. Only for “pleasure” most frequently about 22km round trip for Croissants & grapefruit for breakfast and something for lunch. It is actually more for fitness, to counteract the croissants.
I used to use the cycle/pedestrian dual use paths. But in recent weeks I’ve gone back onto roads Sharing with cars is a lot safer than sharing with eScooters and eBikes ridden by teenagers and knobheads and dogs on long leashes on the opposite of the path from their owner. The electric two wheeled vehicles are silent but deadly. Since the Highway Code changes motorists are being more wary of cyclists and I try not to impede their progress in exchange. So far I’ve avoided public transport post lockdown.
Citroen have a long history of making cars for paysan(ne)s, small engines soft suspension and room for two people and a couple of sheep, and crossing a ploughed field with a tray of eggs without breaking any.
Where I live it is illegal to ride any motorized vehicle on the bike paths and trails. That doesn’t seem to have sunk in on the idiots with their electric bikes. There was one annoying man who used to whiz by me on my favorite . Then I saw a policeman posted on the trail. I never saw the annoying electric bike again.
These mini-electrics are nothing more than fancy golf carts.
“Everything has a place”, they tell me.
Do you have the budget and storage space for all your transportation solutions?
1) bicycle
2) electric bicycle or scooter
3) electric mini-car (golf cart, see the ad.)
4) full size, full (?) power electric car.
5) conventional car for when it is cold or wet out.
6) umbrella, hat and athletic shoes.
Remember back in the day, when you depended on your bicycle to get around?
Remember leaving home during a day with perfect weather, only to have a sudden, sharp change up in the weather.
Remember how much fun it was to ride all the way back home in the pouring rain?
Remember this is why we all promised ourselves that we would buy a car just as soon as we could?
I remember very well indeed, I am not going back.
I agree TonyL
My wife and I have only 2 powered vehicles:
A 4wd 1 ton diesel PU for pulling my 5th wheel and long road trips, very comfortable and quiet.
An older 4wd 6 cylinder Toyota Rav4, for daily driving and big enough for when we have the 3 grandkids and dog.
If I were to buy a new small to mid sized suv, I would look into a hybrid since I understand them to have, when needed, the POWER of a V6 to pass, etc.
I expect them to last for years to come. I can’t see replacing the truck for 10 or more years, and the car only has a little over 100 k miles although it is almost 10 years old.
72 years later I still remember when I was 6 years old my mother sent me to the grocery store on my bike for a can of pumpkin. A one way journey of over 2 miles. Had just lost the trainer wheels and was in 2-wheel freedom! Later had a 100 client paper route with half of them on the side of a hill with a 45% grade. 2 feet of snow and angry dogs (solved by frequent cookie treats). Lotsa of fun in the winter or pouring rain! Same feeling when I got my driver’s license. Same feeling when I bought my first car! At that age I didn’t care how bad the weather was, I was on my own, at least for a while…
Okay, where’s my tax credit for that? I guess it went to the EV buyers, the rooftop solar installers, the windmill farm owners, the UAW and SEIU, and the CCP Red Army because they have ownership interests in many green industry components.
What inspires me is all the hard-working people in the Permian Basin getting things done with honest work.
There is a foot of snow outside now and I’d rather not ride a bike today
I wish I were here instead of looking out my office window.
https://www.eldora.com/the-mountain/webcams/snow-stake-cam
Hooray! More traffic chaos.
Am I the only person who has that e-bikes don’t stop at stop signs?
No licence… no responsibility?
Doh! I forgot the word “noticed”.
It’s called the “Idaho stop” because people there noticed it and decided to make it legal. Other states have adopted it into law. So, depending on where you are, it might be perfectly responsible.
That may be true for Idaho, and some other states. But where I live bicycles are considered “vehicles”, and must obey the rules of the road.
Cyclists like to keep their momentum. It’s hard stopping, then starting again. Electric bikes don’t have this problem.
In the UK cyclists have a reputation for going through red lights and ignoring most rules of the road. I try to follow the rules, I don’t like putting my life or well being into a strangers hands unnecessarily.
But riders of eScooters seem quite happy to do their own thing.
I try to do likewise on my pedal bike.
But I’ve reached the conclusion that many cyclists in the UK are either psychotic or suicidal. Or both…any often, they are partially successful when they take on a 40-tonner.
E-scooters are merely part of modern infantilisation; look like a child; act like a child.
Personally, I’ve always thought of e-bikes as being aimed at the likes of Dr. Soon – someone who enjoys cycling, but who due to injury (or simply advancing years) needs some assistance in that regard.
People on pedal bikes don’t obey any of the rules of the road either. Why should e-bike riders be any different?
Quote: “The current sky high price of fuel and energy …….”
Comment: As all exaggerations are, this one is a classic, and also endlessly repeated. The fact is:
Inflation of the last few decades accounted for makes the gas price today exactly the same as it was a generation ago.
True. The price of gas has always amazed me. I work in tech which is one of the few places that knows what deflationary prices really means. But somehow gasoline hasn’t even kept pace (except for this last year) with inflation.
It has varied, and depends on what your starting point is. Start with 1980 and it looks just like you say. Start with 1978 and it looks a lot different.
A generation is generally 15-20 years ago. 20 years ago gas was $1.36. 15 years ago it was $2.80. Which do you start with?
True. I remember buying gas in 2006 for $0.799 per gallon. I was amazed that it was cheaper than a gallon of distilled water.
Gasoline starts as oil extracted from the ground, then shipped to a refinery, cracked into smaller hydrocarbons, separated, purified and combined to get the right mix for gasoline, and finally shipped from the refinery to the service station. All that for less than water.
2006 for $0.799 per gallon??
Where was that?
Last I saw $0.799 would have maybe been in the 80’s
“Under my plan … electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.” – Obama 2008
“Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe,” Chu said in an interview with the Journal in September 2008.(Obama’s Energy Secretary)
Dr. Steven Chu, “has said publicly he wants us to pay European levels (for gasoline), and that would be $9 or $10 a gallon.” in 2008.
Just imagine Speaker Pelosi cycling from Washington DC to Florida for her holiday and then cycling back. Better still imagine her cycling from California for each sitting of the house. I think this a brilliant idea that will once and for all kill off the alarmist transport solutions.
+500
… don’t need to imagine when Tom gives the clear picture.
The Climate Youth Corp can do that for her while she takes one of the Congressional jets.
Great idea! When all of our elected leaders at Federal, State and local level commute and run errands on their electric bikes, I will follow suit!
Fortunately, I believe that promise is fairly risk free.
Yep! “It’s an omission that speaks volumes about how underappreciated battery-boosted bicycles remain in Washington, even among the most climate-friendly politicians.” I share a wall in our apartment with an ex-ministerial level politician who is CEO of a London based green lobby group. He and his good wife just bought a car – not an electric car, just a petrol powered car. And they don’t own a bike.
Fun true story. Ford’s Model T was the leading car for years because of his invention of the assembly line leading to low Model T cost (e.g. only color was black for assembly simplicity). GM copied the assembly line and added one feature to their version—a roof (against rain and snow). Immediately took over first place and GM never looked back until Toyota came along with kanban (just in time plus quality control learned from US’ Deming).
Maybe in Bloomberg’s world it never rains or snows, but it sure does in mine.
Not even close to being true. The Model T came out in 1908. It had a folding fabric roof. The first car with a fixed roof came out in 1915 (not GM). GM first overtook Ford in sales in 1929. GM first mass produced hardtops in 1949. Toyota overtook GM in 2009 more than 50 years after Deming went to Japan.
It rains and snows in my world too. When I was younger, rain or cold never stopped me from riding my bike to work but never in snow. Now, I only ride my bike for pleasure on a sunny day when it’s above 60 F.
I would have to ride my bike to the store once or twice a day to bring back enough food for me and my wife. With a car, we can food shop once a week.
“When I was younger, rain or cold never stopped me from riding my bike to work but never in snow”
But was it uphill both ways?
I get it, your reference to an old crotchety codger. However, there was a very big hill. You had to pedal uphill in low gear for part of the trip, both ways. Pedal uphill, coast back down. On the return, pedal uphill, coast back down. That’s the way hills work. Much harder than riding on the flat, something a Floridian might not know much about (smiley face).
But I grew up in Connecticut where I did all my bike riding. Lots of hills and gullies to ride up and down.
I live in Washington state. I had a visitor from the East Coast ask me what the name of the mountain was that he could see from my backyard. It’s so small it doesn’t have a name, but it’s taller than the tallest peak in Connecticut. Sorry Tom, but people from Connecticut don’t know what a steep hill is.
Your small sample of people “from the East Coast” has lead you to an incorrect conclusion. But aside from that, you are confusing large with steep. New England is covered with steep slopes and gullies carved out of granite by running water. Roads and paths wind up and down these places. So not large in height but very steep and difficult to ride.
When we have EVs there will be fewer vehicles on the road because for most they’re unaffordable
Besides I have a conscience Child slavery isn’t something I’m comfortable with
It’ll be too expensive to replace a battery pack to keep an old EV on the road. Replacing a dead ICE with one from another scrapped one is cost effective and it will usually last a decade. The only solution for a dud battery is a new one. So your only option is public transport or a bike if you can’t afford a new vehicle.
Britain is long past the time when knocker uppers woke the factory workers who then walked to work in a dark satanic mill.
Currently the UK motorists are forced to accept either individually or two a breast bike riders in the middle of the traffic lane.
Since e-bikes tend to move faster than pedaling ones they might be preferable on the streets and country roads.
eBikes are ridden by knobheads too, probably at a higher ratio than the national average. I think that there is supposed to be a limit to speeds on an eBike. But I guess that is simple to override. Speed Pedelecs are a certain category of bike assists the rider up to 28mph using a more powerful, usually 500W motor. Due to their increased speed, they require registration with the DVLA and are to be treated as a light moped (L1e-B). Presumably not registered by the dealer prior to delivery
I do a lot of cycling, as a lone wolf, and find the ratio of knobhead drivers reflects that of the general public. It seems sensible to me not to put your life and well being into the hands of a stranger driving a one tonne metal box doing 30+mph who may well be an idiot who doesn’t worry about others. I’ve said on this thread that I feel safer on the roads than on shared pedestrian/cycle paths.
Since e-bikes tend to move faster than pedaling ones they might be preferable on the streets and country roads.
I disagree. I have to dodge scooters fairly often, and the slower moving ones are easier to pass – much less time spent edging into the opposing lane.
The Great Reset does not contemplate that the average citizen will own a personal transportation device other than bikes, skateboards, roller blades etc. There is not enough electricity, not enough copper, nickel, rare earths, lithium and on and on to accommodate people other than the elites. Notice today that Tesla has raised their prices because of this. We are beginning the destruction of the middle class, and they are so brainwashed that they will go, gaily singing songs of the revolution, to their doom. I’m old and have lived in the best of all times. Good luck to the rest of you.
Like many media organizations these days, Bloomberg seems to be largely written by ignorant 20 & 30-something urban Utopianists who can’t fathom an existence outside of a college campus or Manhattan. They romanticize the “simple life” that they think the past really was. They would not have enjoyed the reality.
And this writer also still doesn’t get it that the only reason that Putin now gets to control Europe with fossil fuels is because that same Europe was suckered into diving headfirst into renewables that were never a viable replacement for Europe’s previous energy infrastructure. All those E-Bikes are ultimately going to be fueled by either domestically burned coal or Russian natural gas.
Bloomberg himself was not a 20-30something and yet he was an ignorant Brooklyn raised city dweller when he said “farming is a simple process, dig a hole, put in seed, cover hole, water and then harvest”
I thought that was Cuomo, but I can accept that either one is an ignoramus enough to say that.
They romanticize the “simple life” that they think the past really was. They would not have enjoyed the reality.
I’ve offered some of these folk to come live with me for a year. And I’m just rural. Not even off-grid or anything that’s a real hardship. It’s still a lot tougher than most of them comprehend.
today the only alternative to fossil fuels is batteries … and the best battery (by a large margin, there are no good second choices) we have is made with Lithium … we mine 87,000 metric tons of it per year … thats enough to build about 1.2 million vehicles … the world builds 66 million NEW cars/trucks/SUV’s per year …
It simply doesn’t matter where we get our electricity from … we will NEVER get off of fossil fuels for transportation …
we could have free unlimited electricity and we still wouldn’t stop using fossil fuels for most transportation … we simply can’t build more than a tiny fraction of the vehicles we need (with batteries) … period …
Oh I wish you realists would stop with the NUMBERS.
Tell us how you FEEL about these physics/ design / engineering matters.
They keep talking about “sustainable” energy.
What tree does lithium grow on?
Bloomberg is making a bundle sucking up to China.
China has 30% of the world’s emissions, controls nearly 60% of the raw steel and aluminum production, has 80% of the world’s polysilicon manufacturing capacity. They have no interest in slowing down. Bloomberg has no interest in telling they should either.
Eric
“What happened to reaching for the stars, flying automobiles, a life
aof leisure and luxury that even the emperors of old could never have aspired to?”Another superb post !
Ran across this today from a friend. No, I have not checked the numbers, but interesting comparisons (slightly off subject). I do not knowto whom to attribute this research:
Someone with a sharp mind and the capacity to do a little research spent some time putting some numbers together:
>
> 1 Train has 100 cars, 2 engines and weighs 27,240,000 LBS
>
> 1 Train carries 3,000,000 gallons of oil.
>
> 1 train uses 55.5 gallons of diesel per mile.
>
> It takes 119,000 gallons of diesel to go 2150 miles from Hardidsy, AB to
> Freeport, TX.
>
> Keystone pipeline was to deliver 34,860,000 gallons of oil per day.
>
> It would take 12 trains and 1,428,000 gallons of diesel to deliver that
> amount. PER DAY!
>
> 521,220,000 gallons of diesel per year.
>
> The oil will still go to market with or without the pipeline.
>
> By stopping the pipeline billions of gallons of diesel will be wasted and
> pollute needlessly. Does that make you feel good?
>
> Stop the Tar Sands all together? Then we must ship the oil from the
> overseas sandbox.
>
> 1 large oil tanker can haul 120,000,000 gallons of oil
>
> 1 boat takes 15 days to float across the Atlantic.
>
> 1 boat uses 63,000 gallons of fuel PER DAY, that is about 1 million
> gallons of the most polluting type fuel in the world PER TRIP.*(See below)
>
> Or take 3.5 days of Keystone Pipeline to move the same amount of oil with
> a fraction of the pollution.
>
> In international waters ship emissions remains one of the least regulated
> parts of our global transportation system. The fuel used in ships is waste
> oil, basically what is left over after the crude oil refining process. It
> is the same as asphalt and is so thick that when cold it can be walked
> upon . It’s the cheapest and most polluting fuel available and the world’s
> 90,000 ships chew through an astonishing 7.29 million barrels of it each
> day, or more than 84% of all exported oil production from Saudi Arabia.
>
> Shipping is by far the biggest transport polluter in the world. There are
> 760 million cars in the world today emitting approx 78,599 tons of Sulfur
> Oxides (SOx) annually. The world’s 90,000 vessels burn approx 370 million
> tons of fuel per year emitting 20 million tons of Sulfur Oxides. That
> equates to 260 times more Sulfur Oxides being emitted by ships than the
> worlds entire car fleet. One large ship alone can generate approx 5,200
> tones of sulfur oxide pollution in a year, meaning that 15 of the largest
> ships now emit as much SOx as the worlds 760 million cars
>
> Eliminate all gas consuming cars and diesel vehicles?
>
> Worldwide car gas consumption is 403,583,712,000 gallons a year. That’s
> billion.
>
> Worldwide oil consumption is 1,500,000,000,000 gallons a year. That’s
> trillion.
>
> It takes 2.15 gallons of oil to make 1 gallon of gasoline/petrol, and 0.6
> gal of diesel.
>
> So it takes 867,704,980,800 gallons of oil to run the worlds cars, most
> diesel vehicles for a year and some ships
>
> That leaves 632,295,019,200 gallons of oil for other uses.
>
> Passenger vehicles are only a very small percentage of the problem. If
> emissions are the problem why not just capture them at the exhaust? Create
> an industry to clean exhaust instead of crushing an entire industry and
> building a complete untested, replacement industry?
>
> So are we willing to dramatically increase mining to get all the minerals
> necessary to make all these batteries and electric motors? Mining is far
> worse for the environment than oil extraction.
>
> Killing Keystone was glibly decided by emotional idiots without brains!
Facts turn “green dreams” into real life nightmares.
This article is beyond excellent, it perfectly points out the heinous thinking and strategies of climate alarmists and many of our leaders. They create imaginary emergencies then rush in with their convoluted ideas to save us all. Create a climate emergency out of whole cloth, blame mankind and fossil fuels and rearrange our whole society in order to save us. They make me sick, I have had a bellyful of those chuckle heads.
I searched for “e-cargo bike” and found this picture. Am I the only one who thinks this looks unsafe at any speed?
That’s a good bike with mid-drive motor.
Yes, he really should be looking forward. At least he’s not texting.
I’m so exhausted I can’t breathe. Don’t the Bloomberg Greens understand that bikes and bike lanes are systemic racism, straight up?
Do Hispanic roofers use bikes and bike lanes on their way to their next roofing job? Do aspiring rappers on their way to their next recording gig?
And sexism! Do nice liberal ladies ride the e-bike to their book-club meeting?
It’s the notion they have that things can be ‘un-invented‘
What sort of grip on reality and what education, from parents, peers, school or in the real world, did they receive?
Once people have had a taste of motor cars, they ain’t gonna let them go UNLESS, something better comes along.
(I remembered that from a discussion on nuclear waepons of many many moons ago – nukes can not be ‘de-discovered’ or magically made to ‘just go away‘
How do they not know that?
Yet at the same time they are all experts in Trapped Heat and the Quantum Mechanics of the Green House Effect?
Yet all they can think of is regressing to some magical idyllic world that is completely NOT what they think it is or was.
There is The Real Problem of today= people’s heads
Around my neighborhood Ebikes are proliferating like rabbits. Mostly it’s younger coddled children …. 7 to 16 year olds …. who don’t pay attention to road laws, safety, or pedestrians. It has also become fashionable for adults to ride their Ebikes down to the beach and cruise the boardwalk at excessive speed. Often they race from one city to the next along the boardwalk and bar hop …. you can guess the outcome of that.
Get the billionaires and the do-gooders to set an example during a 24 month pilot. None of them use anything but horses, cycles or on foot. The rest of us fly as normal.
Bloomberg doesn’t ride e-bikes because he wouldn’t be able to reach the peddles.
““When we have electric cars powered by clean energy, we will never have to worry about gas prices again,”
““When we have electric cars powered by clean energy, we may never have to worry about gas prices again but, Whoa Nelly, your electric bill is going to kill you.”
There, fixed it.
Memo to Bloomberg: You first.
That was my first thought.
I recently built an eBike and I have to say it’s great fun! Fortunately I have a cycle path near to where I live that takes me close to work and it’s a great way to commute. The bike with essentially no pedal assist gets maybe 50km range which is plenty.
Tim, ebikes look like fun and have their place, but it seems Bloomberg wants to get rid of all other forms of transport. Serfs can walk or bike, eh?
My problem is how to tow a 16,000 pound trailer with an ebike.
Horses for courses.
At the moment (where I live) eBikes dont need to be registered and dont represent an ongoing drain on one’s finance. While thats true’s its viable to have both a car and eBike and choose whether to use it per trip.
I think e-bikes are a scourge of the city.
About 3 years ago I was driving downtown in a city. The speed limit was 25 MPH and I was going about 28 in the far right lane. From the sidewalk comes some hipster doofus on a rental e-bike onto the main road without even bothering to look if a vehicle was in the road. I had to press on my brakes to avoid hitting this doofus. In the road, he was swerving really bad, couldn’t drive straight. Eventually the obvious soy boy notices that I was behind him, and then he swerves hard back onto the sidewalk, almost hitting a walking pedestrian.
How many people are injured by reckless e-bike riders?
The problem is with the people not the eBikes though. How many people are killed by morons on their phones in much more dangerous cars?
POTUS: “I may be Irish but I am not stupid.”
Could be this an insut to the Irish, or to the stupid, or both?
An Irish friend of mine once told me a joke.
“Why did God invent whiskey?
So the Irish wouldn’t take over the World!”
If Biden really is Irish, no more need for whiskey.
When Obama heard Biden was putting his name in the hat, he is rumoured to have said “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to f*ck things up”. Only hearsay, but I believe it.
Uh, yeah, those e-bikes are a great solution here in the Phoenix, Arizona area! From May through September it’s often over 100f, and riding anything–bikes, e-bikes, motorcycles, scooters–is like riding through hell, and you can bet not a lot of businesspeople are going to pedal or even coast from the suburbs into downtown in those temperatures. And in fall, I can already see those poor riders when they get off work and see one of our gigantic dust storms coming their way, and they have twenty e-miles to ride to get home.
YES! Here in Minnesota, we can’t wait to take our kids to school, go grocery shopping, and travel to work (not on a farm, of course) in the winter on a e-bike!
Because we all live in urban centers where e-bikes might be practical? Because we can all stay home in bad weather? Because cold weather doesn’t drain batteries?
Makes sense, yay.
Why do the greens promote electric vehicles before there are RELIABLE green sources of electricity?
(Cart before the horse?)
Why are Governments supporting AND subsidizing such nonsense to make it appear affordable to “Go Green”?
Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming is … er … Climate Change is not our “Existential Threat”.
The “solutions” to the nonexistent threat are.
Must not live where there is weather. Bikes are not for most people to commute to work. Not safe on snow or extreme cold or places with lots of rain. I saw Eastern try riding their bikes to work in alaska. They did not last.
You must cut down… Us? There are so few of us, it doesn’t matter.
There are so many of you… You must cut down.
Four legs good, two legs better.
Our jets, our black suv’s, our mansions. our yachts’
We are so few, you are so many…
“You will own nothing and be happy.”
I love riding my bike. My wife loves riding her eBike. We like loading our bikes on the back of the SUV and driving out to our bike ride and then driving back home.
Steady, there – you’ll make the greenies blow a gasket.
As I understand it, it was the collective west that decided to stop buying oil from Russia, not Russia refusing to sell oil to the west. This is further evidence (if it were needed) of the insanity running through western societies.
I own an ebike. I use it for leisure – exercise and fresh air. I do 10 mile rides on the weekends, at sunrise to avoid all the idiots on the roads. It’s downright dangerous to ride with all the idiots behind the wheels of cars these days.
It is nice in that I get to go fast and get some exercise by using the lowest pedal assist from the motor/battery. I average about 15 mph. And have some hard acceleration available to cross streets or get moving after a red light or stop sign (again to stay clear of idiots in cars).
I still get about as much exercise as without the electric assist, except then I would only be able to do about 3 miles at a snail’s pace of maybe 7 mph average. My battery holds 550 watt-hours, and at modest assist levels and not too much acceleration I can go 30 miles on a charge.
Ebikes cannot get your groceries, nor take the kids to school, not even tricycle cargo versions. And you cannot leave it out in heavy rain, nor drive in anything more than a slight mist – the controls are “water resistant” but not water proof! (operates at 50 volts so even slightly conductive water will cause shorts)
It’s fun and useful for leisure, but not as primary means of transportation.
Some perspective against the elites flying private jets to Climate Cult Conferences:
1 conference, with 50 private jets, each consuming an average of 20,000 lbs of Jet A fuel. (one way from N America to Europe eats 30k lbs, and the shorter legs from within Europe consumes 10-15k lbs so average of 20k lbs one way)
Jet A has 35 MJ/Liter, so 62.1 MJ/lb. Turbofan engines are about 35% efficient so knock down that figure to 21.73 MJ/lb useful energy.
A watt-hour is 0.0036 MJ. So each pound of Jet A has 6037 watt-hours of useful energy stored. 50 jets with 20,000 lbs of fuel burned, is then equivalent to nearly 11 million of my ebike batteries fully charged!
So for one Climate Cult Conference – the elites consume as much energy as 11 million of us peasants charging our ebike batteries. Hypocrisy manifest by the elites telling everyone to ride ebikes instead of hydrocarbon fueled cars!
“Let them ride e-bikes” …
Least expensive e-bike at Dick’s is $1,100. Everyone’s good with that, right?
If I lived in an urbanized area I might consider it. Of course, it’s hard enough walking around someplace like NYC, much less a bike
I can’t wait to be transported to my doctor’s appointment on a E bike as an smartphone serf and elderly and decrepit senior. If an e -bike is not good enough for an oligarch, it’s not good enough for me. But it might be fun to own one if it had a GOOD BATTERY and didn’t cost as much as a running and inspected used car.
A used bike with converted to a motor bike using the two stroke engine converter kit would be far cheaper and more readily available. An e-bike E-bike costs 1-8 grand. I can get a good bike off the side of the road for zero and convert by buying a two stoke engine kit at Walmart for 85 bucks or less. Why would I buy an e-bike…. it would be stupid. Serfs don’t need status symbols…. we have HSA, 401K and IRA’s to constantly feed dough into.
You’re being silly. I own an ebike, one I converted from a used bike at a pawn shop I got for $100. You are delusional if you think you can convert any bike to gas powered with a 2 stroke engine for $85. What about the engine mount? What about the adapter for the engine output shaft to bike sprocket? What about a cable actuated throttle? And now that you can go 2-3x faster, you need very substantial brakes. And you cannot have a stiff bike with no suspension – as the first time you hit bumps at speed, you are going to bend rims and break your backside. You can’t use skinny tires – again due to speed and terrain – etc etc. By the time you are done, you’ve spent as much as I did with the ebike which has no stink, no noise and much more convenient.
All told I spent around $1300. I got a bike with the right kind of frame, front suspension, the right rear gear system and wheel size for $100 at a pawn shop. Then the conversion kit was $750 – including a 1,000 watt direct drive motor and custom heavy duty rear rim, 550 Whr battery, charger motor controller, LCD display, switch assembly, thumb throttle, and brake switches (to kill motor when applying brakes), and a rotary sensor to provide pedal assist signal.
then you need tires – again you must use like 2-2.3″ tires that are heavy – as it weighs more and goes faster. and better tubes – there is another $150. Then I needed a sprung seat, and fenders – and I also got a carrier and saddle bags. I needed to install a disc brake on front again because of speed. I needed a new derailer for the rear, and new pedals and crank, and a chain guard – also needed new handle bars and grips – for comfort and to mount everything.
All told I spent $1300 and my custom ebike is superior to factory models costing about $2500 to $4000. I’ve put 4000 miles on it since I got it in 2018, and I really enjoy it. But as this article points out, it is NOT suitable for primary mode of transportation – it’s for fun and leisure – I even did a year of taking it to work as my employ is only 1.3 miles from home, and car/truck does not even get to operating temp with such a short run, so the ebike made sense. But negotiating rush hour traffic on any bike makes commuting a no go in the end here.
Electric propulsion is at its most advantageous when it replaces a power source with low energy density. I am of course talking about a human being. Humans can with suitable acclimatisation maintain 100+W for some hours. A battery of reasonably compact size will deliver 400W-hr, with a combined weight penalty of about 6kg.
Thus rider + bike have nearly doubled their power:weight and can travel, in my case for up to 70 miles on a charge of 0.37kw-hr. You’ll have to refer to your provider to translate that into an actual cost, but it’s going to be pennies.
The equation rapidly flips into the negative when considering cars or even electric motorcycles because it’s difficult to achieve a practical range when lugging additional weight about. To restore a reasonable range:speed the batteries become overwhelmingly large and heavy, along with the necessarily larger and heavier motor.
Richard makes a good point in general terms, but specifics are off. I own an ebike. It has a 1000 watt direct drive rear wheel motor. I have a 550 Whr lithium battery (same cells as used in a Tesla). I have a thumb throttle and pedal assist. (crank sensor and electronics to have 5 levels of pedal assist).
The average human cannot deliver a continuous 100 watts of pedaling power! On my 10 mile runs I can maintain about 60 watts of pedal power. I can do bursts of 100 to maybe 150 watts for perhaps a minute or three – but on a long run, it’s about 60 watts. (with my bike’s electronics I can determine what power my pedaling is providing)
The weight penalty for having an ebike is not just the battery, but the frame, rims and tires have to be beefier than a plain bike, or one meant for touring. It goes much faster, so you must have suspension, and you must use wider tires, for both grip and suspension, and they must be heavier as hitting bumps at double or triple the normal speed demands. The drive motor and rim are substantial weight penalty too.
Then the wider tires entail considerably more rolling resistance than skinny ones too. My ebike is at least double if not triple the weight of a high end touring bike.
My battery has a capacity of 550 Whr. However you cannot use all of that or you will rapidly destroy the battery. I can discharge mine to the tune of about 450 Whr max, and even that is too much. I typically go 30 miles with a pedal assist of about 130 watts, and about 20 – 10 second bursts of acceleration using 750 to 900 watts. So generally I discharge about 350 Whr.
Surely if you have a geared drive motor of smaller size (350 to 500 watts) you will get more mileage than my behemoth 1 kW direct drive motor – but you cannot get 370 Whr from a 400 Whr battery! (unless you want to kill it fast)
However your main point that the economics of an ebike are favorable, compared to cars or trucks is correct. The weight penalty for the ebike compared to a normal bike is far outweighed by the increase in power, range etc. Whereas the weight penalty for a car is not so good, and the energy density comes into play for cars vs hydrocarbon energy storage.
There is a down side to the ebike – a touring bike you can fix flats on the road if you are equipped. But the ebike – if you get a flat on the rear, drive wheel – you are screwed. and because you can go so much further from home, it’s a long walk half carrying your ebike so as not damage that expensive custom rim! Happened to me not long ago, fortunately only 1.5 miles from home, not at my furthest extent. (the sidewall blew out so there was no pumping it up for a few hundred yards at a time)
Bloomberg should show us all here in the west just how that will work, when the average travel distances for most are much higher than most places in the city centers. This is still the USA and if Bloomberg wants to ride a e bike, then go right ahead. But that doesn’t mean the rest of us want to, or would it make any sense. I don’t subscribe or believe in his climAte religion. Besides, how or where do all the people pushing these e vehicles think they will get the amount of electricity to power all the cars and bikes, trains, and planes? Solar and wind? We will be waiting a week to charge one car. The truth is we aren’t ready for prime time on many of these technologies and won’t be in any time soon. So fossil fuels coal and hydro are going to be the main source. Besides, have any of these people seen a strip mine or pit mine? Do they understand the processes it takes to process and extract the metals and rare earth materials? It’s ugly and very dirty. So just continue to push for your unicorn farts and pixy dust and it won’t be long before we’re all sitting in the dark starving to death. Dummies!