New Study... bicycles offer little benefit to the environment.
Richard B
bicycles offer little benefit to the environment.
Why you may ask...
Because Cyclists live longer and therefore are more of a drain on energy
and resources!
You can't win with this crowd.
Oh well I guess we'll have to outlive them...
Rich
Here is a link to the research paper in Adobe format.
http://tinyurl.com/eae2d:
Mike Kruger
news:Xns980DC0C1916C2bl...@216.168.3.50...
> Research by UPenn professor Karl Ulrich came to the conclusion that
> bicycles offer little benefit to the environment.
>
> Why you may ask...
>
> Because Cyclists live longer and therefore are more of a drain on energy
> and resources!
>
> You can't win with this crowd.
> Oh well I guess we'll have to outlive them...
>
Governments argued that they should be compensated because of the cost of
taking care of sick smokers.
Tobacco companies argued that no compensation was appropriate because, since
smokers died sooner, they collected overall less in government benefits over
their lifetimes.
As I work on retirement planning -- retirement not being imminent, but
planning being necessary -- it's pretty clear that one of the big factors in
how much money I need to save up in retirement is how long I should plan on
living after retirement.
Earl Bollinger
"Mike Kruger" <Mik...@mouse-potato.com> wrote in message
news:6Ueyg.136427$dW3....@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
I don't see how any twisted logic has driving motor vehicles being less of
an impact on the environment that riding a bicycle has, irrespective of
lifespans.
Mike Kruger
news:ZeydnbiOUJMO4FTZ...@comcast.com...
>
>>
> Makes me wonder who paid him for the paper. Car companies? oil companies?
> I don't see how any twisted logic has driving motor vehicles being less of
> an impact on the environment that riding a bicycle has, irrespective of
> lifespans.
>
analysis [insert junk science joke here]
"...estimate a 0.029 year increase in longevity for each year an individual
engages in bicycling 2600 km"
The reason why this is particularly interesting is this:
0.029 years is 250 hours -- but, if you slept 8 hours a day this would be
170 waking hours.
At 15 km/hr -- the minimum speed on a brevet -- it would take you 170 hours
to ride that far
So, on average, you aren't wasting time riding when you could be spending
time with your spouse. You are time-shifting that time until your spouse is
old and needs your companionship even more. You just want to make as sure
as possible that you will be around to help her in her old age.
I don't know whether this argument will work or not, but I certainly intend
to try it ;)
I recall that there is other work suggesting that the increase in longevity
from exercise is about the same order of magnitude as the time spent
exercising -- but I can't recall those citations now.
Furious George
Richard B wrote:
> Research by UPenn professor Karl Ulrich came to the conclusion that
> bicycles offer little benefit to the environment.
The professor made so many (stated) assumptions that his conclusions
are questionable. For example, he assumed that bicyclists owned a car.
While it is true for many bicyclists, it is not universally true.
Since the manufacture of the car represents (according to the
professor) 10% of the total energy costs of car ownership, it is a
significant assumption.
trino
How much coal and iron ore does it take to build one car.
How much ozone do they burnout forever per year. I have heard a few to
several tons per year of pollution per car/yr. Vague for good reason.
How much fossil fuel do they burnout forever.
you get the picture.
I use sweat powered vehicles only.
Jean H.
:-) I read once a study saying that obese people where helping reducing
the green house gas, because they keep a lot of Carbon in their fat!..
so if all of us where obese, it could be a way to significantly reduce
climate change!
This study was a serious one, but written as a joke, and the author
concluded that it would still be better to consumates less than more :)
********
For the bike study, there are a few things:
p3: "Physical activity by previously sedentary individuals increases
their longevity, and therefore their overall energy consumption."
===> but it reduces the energy those people use when spending countless
hours buying useless devices or watching TV, or even the rate of
replacing the soffa because there is a hole under their butt
p3: "The energy required to produce, process, and transform food is
approximately 5.75 times greater than the energy content of the food
itself (Coley 1998)"
===> it depends on what you eat... frozen pre-made meal or vegetables
from the farms in your state!
p7: "For the assumed parameters the net savings from bicycling are
1.3-1.5 GJ/yr. This savings is 0.5-0.7 percent of total annual energy
use, so small as to be well within the likely error in the estimate."
===> So it is a reduction of the energy consuption! ... and the likely
errors in his assumptions, "mean values" (rather than using the median
or the mode in all the values distribution, depending on the skewness of
the distribution)
Some thing he forgot:
* More bikes = less car ==> need for more bikepath and less roads,
which are cheaper (and smaller, by size) to built. Also, need for less
road maintenance.
* More activities = better health = less visit to the doctors/hopital
in your midle age
* more bikes = less cars = less polution = less cost for the society
anyways, this kind of study are total crap... somebody should write one
entitled "Environmental benefit of banning all private cars"
Jean
trino
Mike Kruger
"Research by UPenn professor Karl Ulrich came to the conclusion that
http://tinyurl.com/eae2d: "
Now I'm actually reading the article, and there are some interesting little
facts along the way.
I've blindcopied Ulrich and enclosed the Google link for this discussion, in
case he's interested.
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.bicycles.misc/browse_frm/thread/a6a739a9a02b0b59/37366830108b9b3a?hl=en#37366830108b9b3a
Average automobile in US uses 3.8 MJ/km. This is substantially higher than
the average for the OECD countries of 2.5 MJ/km. So, roughly speaking, if we
drove the smaller, more efficient vehicles common elsewhere in the developed
world we could drive just as far just as often and still use one-third less
gasoline.
A person on a bicycle uses 17kJ/km directly, or 77kJ/km in terms of food
energy (since the ratio of work done to food energy consumed is about 22%).
The energy required to produce, process, and transform the food is 5.75
times greater than the energy in the food, so the total energy cost is about
0.44MJ/km, or about 1/6 to 1/9th that of the automobile. There's a lot of
difference between 17kj and 440kj, which might explain some of the
discrepancies in some of the discussions on this newsgroup over time over
the food energy cost of cycling.
Several dozen studies show exercise expenditure of 4.2 mJ/wk (about 1000
kcal, or what we usually call 1000 calories) is associated with a reduction
in all-cause mortality.
The fatality rate (from accidents) is assumed to be 12 times as high per
kilometer for cycling as for driving. Fatalities, of course, lower future
energy consumption.
Increasing logevity does not change end-of-life healthcare requirements, but
extends the healthy years.
Ulrich's conclusion is that bicycling that replaces automobile use (even if
you still own the automobile) lowers total per capita energy consumption
from all sources by -.005 (i.e. half of 1%), even allowing for the increased
energy used by living longer. 0.5% is well within the error range of his
analysis, so the effect could be zero.
However, if your biking kilometers don't replace automotive use, you don't
save energy, but still live longer. Therefore your energy use increases by
.037 (3.7%) This makes sense -- many of us have noted that driving to a
ride uses up energy rather than saves it.
Electric scooters or electric bicycles have similar energy patterns and
fatality patterns as a bicycle (they just use electricity instead of food),
but don't increase longevity. Therefore, they have a more positive impact on
energy use over a lifetime.
As others have noted, Ulrich assumes the cyclist still owns the same number
of vehicles so he misses the energy benefits of not manufacturing the car.
Are there a lot of such people with "one less car" in their household (who
aren't posting on this newsgroup)? Is there an estimate somewhere of how
many? If there were such an estimate, this could be factored in.
All in all, the study documents its assumptions and is presented in a clear
manner and is worth a look.
Earl wondered who paid for the research. The paper doesn't say, but Ulrich
does have another bicycle paper in his resume, and this usually doesn't
indicate hostility:
Taylor Randall and Karl Ulrich, "Product Variety, Supply Chain Structure,
and Firm Performance: Analysis of the U.S. Bicycle Industry," Management
Science, Vol. 47, No. 12, December 2001, p. 1588-1604.
There's also this chapter:
Karl Ulrich, Taylor Randall, Marshall Fisher, and David Reibstein, "Managing
Product Variety: A Study of the Bicycle Industry," in Managing Product
Variety, Tech-Hua Ho and Chris Tang (editors), Kluwer Academic Publishers,
1998.
There's a bit of small-world theory involved here, since I just presented a
paper extending one of Reibstein's other models at an INFORMS conference,
(and Management Science is an INFORMS journal).
Mike Kruger
Blog: http://journals.aol.com/mikekr/ZbicyclistsZlog/
Jean H.
know the answer if I receive one.
PS: read the coffee part, in the midle of the message...it's interesting!
Jean
------------------
Dear Dr. Ulrich
I have found your working paper "THE ENVIRONMENTAL PARADOX OF BICYCLING"
very surprising.
The first and main one is your statement on page 7:
"For the assumed parameters the net savings from bicycling are 1.3-1.5
GJ/yr. This savings is 0.5-0.7 percent of total annual energy use, so
small as to be well within the likely error in the estimate."
To get to this conclusion, you make a lot of assumptions. For instance,
you use only mean values for the energy required when biking, the food
consuption or the ratio food vs. energy (p3). You must take into account
that sportive people are more likely to eat better food (i.e. food that
contains more energy and that had been less transformed) than sedentary
people. Indeed, a cyclist eating frozen pre-made meals will not have
enough energy to bike! The use of this mean value also induce a bias, that
would likely result in more energy conservation per year. Also, as usual
in sciences, the use of a mean value is arguable and realy depends on the
distribution of the data, which you do not mention. How is the kurtosis
and skewness of the energy required per biked km for a representative
sampling of the population?
There are some other things that you do not count and that certainly
influence the energy saving.
* When sedentary people start to do physical activities, it takes them
time. During this time, people do not buy things (shopping beeing one of
the most populat activity in many North American places), they do not use
energy for watching TV or using their computers, and, to another extent,
people practicing activities will lilekely change their soffa (for overuse
reasons) less often, saving even more energy.
* People biking to their job in the morning get there awake and need less
coffee in the morning. You haven't count the energy saved to grow,
transport, pack the coffee, nor the energy needed to make the cup and the
energy needed to recycle/burn the cup, nor the energy used for boiling the
water etc.
Making 1 cup of coffee takes around 126,000 calories
(http://www.classroom-energy.org/teachers/energy_tour/pg1.html). Someone
that work 5 days a week, and has 3 weeks of holidays will therefore work
about 245 days a years, which equates to 30 870 000calories, or 129.2 mJ.
You use a yearly distance of 2 600km / y. 129 200 kJ / 2 600 = 49.7 kJ/km
The total energy cost of cycling is therefore 443kJ/km - 49.7 kJ/km =
393.3kJ/km, a decrease if more than 11%. This brings the net change in
energy use relative to sedentary base case to -1641 instead of -1513 mJ
You also have to consider that
* More bikes = less car ==> need for more bikepath and less roads, which
are cheaper (and smaller, by size) to built. Also, need for less road
maintenance.
* More activities = better health = less visit to the doctors/hopital in
your midle age
* More bikes = less cars = less polution = less cost for the society
* Less use of the car = less maintenance, use of the same car for a
longer time.
I'll let you do the maths but I am confident that the energy saving would
be much greater than what you have found.
Climate change starting to affect us more and more, it would be much wiser
to write a study about "Environmental benefit of banning all private cars"
rather than, in other words "byciling is bad".
Thank you for your attention,
[MY FULL NAME]
Bill Sornson
> Amen to that Jean
To what?
sally
>bicycles offer little benefit to the environment
He's probably mad that his cousin Jan was kicked out of the Tour de France.
Jean H.
---------------------------------
These are all interesting points.
On the first, I justify the use of mean values by considering the
scenario in which a substantial fraction of the population is engaged in
cycling. Otherwise, it isn't really a significant element of
environmental policy. When referring to very small segments of the
population or to individuals, you certainly are correct that I under- or
overestimate the effect (depending on the deviation of this population
from the mean).
On the other points, I guess all I can say is that they are interesting
conjectures, but I don't think they are yet supported by data or
analysis. Your coffee example is a good start. However, for example, the
cyclists I know are quite avid consumers of coffee. Personally, I drink
5 cups per day along with my 40 km/day of cycling... I'm not saying this
is true of all cyclists, but I think you'd need more compelling evidence
to show that this is a repeatable, systematic effect. Same for the other
points... And, here are a few more: Do cyclists take more hot showers?
Do cyclists have bigger cars to transport bikes? Do cyclists drive with
bike racks on their automobile rooftops, reducing fuel economy? Do
cyclists have larger or smaller families? All very interesting stuff and
I appreciate your contribution to the dialogue.
Best,
Karl
trino
"Bill Sornson" <as...@ask.me> wrote in message
news:zbtyg.25948$Z67....@tornado.socal.rr.com...
> trino wrote:
>> Amen to that Jean
>
> To what?
Bill Sornson
Ah.
Bill "that funny blubbery sound cartoon characters make when driven nuts
wave file goes here" S.
mort
> Makes me wonder who paid him for the paper. Car companies? oil companies?
> I don't see how any twisted logic has driving motor vehicles being less of
> an impact on the environment that riding a bicycle has, irrespective of
> lifespans.
Just so you know: Karl is a dedicated bike commuter, and has had a
long involvement with alternatives to automobiles. He designed and
marketed the Xootr scooter, and his company has continuted with
electric bikes and other efficient transport options. I'd be
astonished if he took money from anyone to write this.
Mort
John Kane
One extremely suspicious assumption :
"I assume that an individual owns an automobile whether using a bicycle
for transportation or not" pg.3
I think that it is an interesting article but suffers from a overly
simplistic model.
John Kane Kingston ON Canada
John Kane
Good points by both Jean and Karl. !!
However, I am noticing a very disticnt assumption by Dr. Ulrich that
most cyclists who use bicycle for transportation also will a) own an
automobile-a highly questionable assumption to me, at least for urban
dwellers-and b) that they might transport their bikes by car. Under
normal circumstances I fail to see why one would use a car to transport
a bicycle unless it is being tranferred from one locale to another. I
am probably a bit of an outlier but I have travelled up to 10,000 km
in a year without once putting my bicycle in or on a car. In fact I
think, in the last 15 years my bikes have been in a automobile (not
including city or intercity buses) 5 times. Three times when moving
from city to city and twice for holidays. (Uoops, forgot 3-4 times in
a taxi when I had a flat tire.
Mike Kruger
news:1154803523.9...@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
>
> However, I am noticing a very disticnt assumption by Dr. Ulrich that
> most cyclists who use bicycle for transportation also will a) own an
> automobile-a highly questionable assumption to me, at least for urban
> dwellers-and b) that they might transport their bikes by car. Under
> normal circumstances I fail to see why one would use a car to transport
> a bicycle unless it is being tranferred from one locale to another. I
> am probably a bit of an outlier but I have travelled up to 10,000 km
> in a year without once putting my bicycle in or on a car. In fact I
> think, in the last 15 years my bikes have been in a automobile (not
> including city or intercity buses) 5 times. Three times when moving
> from city to city and twice for holidays. (Uoops, forgot 3-4 times in
> a taxi when I had a flat tire.
>
make. If you make a muddier assumption -- e.g. that if you use a bicycle for
transportation at least 1500 km you are 10% less likely to own a car --
well, then you have to justify that assumption. Why 10%? Why not 20%? or
5%?
For the same reason, researchers often assume the errors are random. It's a
simple assumption and fairly testable. If you use a more complex assumption
about the errors,then you are more likely to need to justify that
assumption.
I don't know that there are any good studies in this area that could be used
to change the assumption. Do you?