Originally Posted by
cooker
Thanks - great post. When you consider all the fossil fuel that goes into making a car vs e-bike, and the amount consumed in daily use, and the amount that goes into building and maintaining the road surface they both need, an e-bike is going to come out away ahead.
If e-bike usage increases...then more lithium ion batteries need to be produced...Which means in increase in mining where the lithium comes from...then think of all the fossil fueled equipment that is used to mine the lithium...followed by the increase in fossil fuels to transport the lithium (there is only one lithium mine in the U.S. the rest comes from Chile and Australia) from the mine to the battery manufacturer via plane, semi-trucks....then the increase in fossil fuels to manufacture the batteries...then the increase in transporting to move the batteries from the battery company to the bike company. Which means the maintaining of the roads surface still take place.
I don't think the e-bike comes out way ahead in the big picture. For the consumer it does for the rest of it...I don't think so.
The same can be said for hybrid cars. It's well known that hybrid cars do, in fact, require more energy to produce than conventional cars...emitting more greenhouse gases and burning more fossil fuels during the manufacturing process. The production of hybrid batteries requires much more energy than producing a standard car battery and results in higher emission levels of gases like sulfur oxide
Then you get into the pure electric cars...Now you have to produce more power to charge them.
https://blog.ucsusa.org/rachael-neal...-emissions-953