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Old 02-06-2010, 11:51 PM   #21 (permalink)
NeilBlanchard
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The OP has to be mistaken -- a person on a bicycle is the most efficient way to travel, period. Efficiency means it uses less energy than any other way of traveling.

If you drive a car (or ride a small motorcycle) -- you still eat a meal that is nearly the same as the one you would eat if you biked. The difference needs to be balanced against the well-to-wheel energy of the vehicle. Including the REAL costs of exploration, producing, transport, refining, transport again, and then the piss-poor efficiencies of an ICE powered car!

If you eat locally produced food, then you will save a lot of energy input. An average food item travels something like 1,500 miles TO GET TO YOU!

Food (organically produced) is ALL short cycled carbon -- the plants pull carbon dioxide from the air, etc. -- and when you eat it, the carbon returns to the air. There is a zero sum gain of carbon.

Oil on the other hand is millions of years old! A single gallon of gasoline represents ~92 TONS of biological material, that had to be "cooked" for millions of years, and concentrated, by heat and pressure into petroleum -- and you know the rest...

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