Is Cycling sustainable?

Húrin

As you probably know, bicycles have become an icon of the sustainability movement. This movement is informed by two major facts about the 21st century: the need to mitigate carbon dioxide and to adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change; and the inevitability of peak oil forcing a reversal of industrial globalisation.

I am thinking that perhaps the use of the bicycle as one of, if not the prime example of sustainable technology is misinformed. The bicycle industry depends on supplies of very particular metals and equipment to make its alloys for frames and other components. Another major issue is butyl rubber to tubes and tyres. Will that be available at an economical price in a world where cheap long distance shipping is a thing of the past?

Discuss.

useful link:
www.transitionculture.org

Lumen

I'd be more bothered about the fact that once the oil economy dies the roads will become unusable and I'll have to ride around on a mountain bike.

The shame!

ROK ON

Húrin wrote: »

inevitable effects of climate change; and the inevitability of peak oil

I long distance shipping is a thing of the past?

I am very wary of entering debates when some of the participants have used the word inevitable.

Personal opinion is that there is very little in life that is inevitable, apart from our eventual demise.
Words such as inevitable suggest to me that other people have made their mind up already, if that was the case, then any discussion and debate is futile IMO.

Personally spealing, I am from the I don't give a damn school of tought. Will resources deplete, maybe they will. Will we have to adapt or die - more than likely. I there any thing major that I can do, maybe not, but I try to d minor things (recycle, cycle etc).
Thats all really. I guess you could say that I am only along for the ride (in many senses of the word).

blorg

It is all about efficient use of natural resources, not no use. Everything we do exploits natural resources in some form or another.

Bicycles, compared to cars, are a very efficient use of natural resources. Put simply, there is no more efficient way of transporting a human being over distance.

I am a utility cyclist (commuting, shopping etc), don't own a car and don't intend to (thanks to everyone for the lifts with my bike) but most of my cycling is leisure and would not be trips I would otherwise be making with another form of transport. Having said that it does keep me healthy and hopefully less of a burden on the health system.

I accept that taking a short haul flight just to cycle 175km around the Alps (with no intention of going grocery shopping) offsets my utility cycling somewhat

thebouldwhacker

Hurlin, following that argument to its inevitable end, transport is essential, the bike, as blorg pointed out is efficient, therefore will stay. Perhaps how they are made today isnt the greenest so the process changes, bikes remain, just not made of so many heavy metals etc

Vélo

Húrin wrote: »

Another major issue is butyl rubber to tubes and tyres. Will that be available at an economical price in a world where cheap long distance shipping is a thing of the past?

So you're saying just stock up in tyres and tubes and we'll be ok?;)

Gavin

I have supreme faith in the ingenuity of mankind when the need arises. Efficient fusion will arrive soon.

Regarding the sustainability of bicycles. Everything is a compromise and the cost of a bicycle is far outweighed by the benefit.

Lumen

blorg wrote: »

Bicycles, compared to cars, are a very efficient use of natural resources. Put simply, there is no more efficient way of transporting a human being over distance.

At some point efficiency gives way to effectiveness. If you dumped me in the middle of a desert with a camel and a mountain bike, I'd take the camel.

Efficiency is only really important if you care about squeezing the maximum number of people onto the planet. I don't consider this a worthwhile objective.

In a world without cars, I'll be riding a horse.

mmclo

well as said it's all relative of course there are some resources used but much less than on cars and most importantly there is no ongonig fuel consumption, I would estimate that the real carbon and peak oil impact of a car is the ongoing petrol use and emissions in it's use rather than manafacture.

Most of all the silver bullet for cycling in modern policy debate is a confluence of three or four major issues namely Urban Congestion, Health and obesity, Global Warming & Peak Oil. There are simply few lifestlye adaptations that tick all these boxes so comprehnsively.

Moreover as somebody involved in politics there is a refreshing feel of do it yourslef to cycling rather than waiting around for the Government to do something or blaming somebody else you can simply lead by example and do something yourself

blorg

Lumen wrote: »

Efficiency is only really important if you care about squeezing the maximum number of people onto the planet. I don't consider this a worthwhile objective.

Well to be honest that is happening whether you like it or not and it isn't really something you have much direct control over.

mmclo

[/QUOTE]

I heard Sarah Palin had a new job:)

witty username

Lumen wrote: »

If you dumped me in the middle of a desert with a camel and a mountain bike, I'd take the camel.

I wonder is there a north Africa version of Boards that has a camel forum.....

I don't know where I'm going with this.

Lumen

witty username wrote: »

I wonder is there a north Africa version of Boards that has a camel forum.....

I don't know where I'm going with this.

Dromedary = single humpset, for racing.
Bactrian camel = standard double humpset, for touring.

I suspect you could use a baby bactrian camel (compact double) for sportives requiring a combination of responsiveness and long-distance comfort.

DirkVoodoo

Gavin wrote: »

I have supreme faith in the ingenuity of mankind when the need arises. Efficient fusion will arrive soon.

Regarding the sustainability of bicycles. Everything is a compromise and the cost of a bicycle is far outweighed by the benefit.

50-100 years apparently before you are looking at commercially viable options, there is a prototype reactor in France where they use magnetic containment fields to contain the superheated plasma, very cool!

There are lots of questions and many interesting design challenges, but the reality is that we live in an oil based economy and until it becomes prohibitively expensive and other options become available (save your hydrogen nonsense, please!), we will just have to continue.

If you are worried about sustainability, you can reduce your own energy consumption around the home. If everyone did that, it would be better than trying to buy the latest Prius.

witty username

ah yes, I think I saw one of those on chainreactioncamels.com

Hungrycol

Gavin wrote: »

I have supreme faith in the ingenuity of mankind when the need arises.

Here here. Don't underestimate our children.

Chips Lovell

If you keep your hands on the bars and maintain sufficient speed, it usually is sustainable.

ROK ON

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

There are lots of questions and many interesting design challenges, but the reality is that we live in an oil based economy and until it becomes prohibitively expensive and other options become available (save your hydrogen nonsense, please!), we will just have to continue.

Pretty important point. The nominal price of oil is in somewhat of a bull market, rising from $20 in 2001 to $60 tpday, having been as high as $145.

The nominal price is less important than the real price. That is the price adjusted for inflation. The avg oil price before the Yom Kippure war/Oil embargo was usually slightly below $20, during the turbulent 1970's culminating with the Iran iraq war drove the price up to $70.
Fact is our $65 oil today is significantly cheaper in todays money than similarly priced oil in the 1970's.

It is not a tautolgy to suggest that oil is more economically viable now than it has been in the past.
As an aside, the biggest investors in alternative energy technology are the large global oi companies. On that basis, a lot of the profitability fom current oil revenue is being ploughed back into finding alternatives for oil.

I am not that worried about peak oil as a concept. The present global recession will, at the very least, slow down consumtion in emerging economies and elsewhere adding a few more years to our oil supplies.

Furthermore technology in oilfield exploration is expaning. The world now has viable ways of extracting oil from tar sands, verticle drilling techniques and natural gas exploration.

Diarmuid

Gavin wrote: »

Efficient fusion will arrive soon..

Depends on your definition of soon?

DirkVoodoo

Tar sand drilling is a bit of a, damn, what's that expression for something that promises a lot but in the end fails to deliver.

The amount of fresh water is ridiculously high, which is the main bottleneck to production. I think it's in Canada that there is some huge tar sand refinery which has so far failed to meet it's expected targets.

Technology can only get you so far, in terms of extraction. They still only extract at most 40% from a field before they have to move on. Of course, scarcity might force them to invest more money.

Do you mean horizontal drilling? It is definitely the biggest improvement thus far.

Natural gas is a good alternative, especially versus coal. As long as Arnie and his lot don't try to keep using it for hydrogen production, that's a dead end!

ROK ON

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

Tar sand drilling is a bit of a, damn, what's that expression for something that promises a lot but in the end fails to deliver.

The amount of fresh water is ridiculously high, which is the main bottleneck to production. I think it's in Canada that there is some huge tar sand refinery which has so far failed to meet it's expected targets.

Technology can only get you so far, in terms of extraction. They still only extract at most 40% from a field before they have to move on. Of course, scarcity might force them to invest more money.

Do you mean horizontal drilling? It is definitely the biggest improvement thus far.

Natural gas is a good alternative, especially versus coal. As long as Arnie and his lot don't try to keep using it for hydrogen production, that's a dead end!

Canadian tar sands are generally viable with heavy crude prices north of $50. The higher, the more viable.
Yes I do ean horizntal drilling.
And on Gas, many peak oil theorists fail to include it in caclulations. Fact is we used to burn this stuff at source (flaring), it is now transportable, economically viable (maybe moreso than crude refining), a more efficient conductor of energy than say wind energy or hydro power, and relatively clean.

I am less worried about energy longevity than energy inflation. Either ways, cycling is viable. (But just in case the oil starts running out I am going to stockpile Armadillos - I reckon 30 pairs at most should get me through an average length life of cycling).

Gavin

Diarmuid wrote: »

Depends on your definition of soon?

Big scale, within a century

petethedrummer

DirkVoodoo wrote: »

what's that expression for something that promises a lot but in the end fails to deliver.

Cadel Evans?

DirkVoodoo

petethedrummer wrote: »

Cadel Evans?

Hehe, bravo sir!

EDIT: Ah nuts, I preferred the Arsenal one!

petethedrummer

Had to keep it on topic.

blorg

ROK ON wrote: »

The avg oil price before the Yom Kippure war/Oil embargo was usually slightly below $20, during the turbulent 1970's culminating with the Iran iraq war drove the price up to $70.
Fact is our $65 oil today is significantly cheaper in todays money than similarly priced oil in the 1970's.

Prices are down now from the peak last year but if you can only say things are a bit better than 1973 when there was a deliberate embargo, I don't think that is looking good. The peak prices we saw were above 1973 levels.

Do you think oil will be around the same price as today in 25 years? I certainly don't.

ROK ON

@Blorg. I really believe that it is vitally important to differentiate between the nominal price and the real price that is adjusted for general inflation.
Oil now (in real terms) is cheaper than it was in the late 1970's. Even our recent peak of 147 is also below the Iran/Iraq peak when adjusted for inflation. we adjust for inflation becuse a dollar today is not equal to a dollar in the past.

I am actually bullish on the price of oil, but have the humility to know that I cannot know what will happen in the next 25yrs to its price. There are too many unknown unknowns.

In general if oil was to keep pace with inflation then it will be higher in 25yrs. But the only real argument is whether the real oil price is higher or lower. I actually think it could go either way, but I would bet that it would be higher.

tomc

blorg wrote: »

I accept that taking a short haul flight just to cycle 175km around the Alps (with no intention of going grocery shopping) offsets my utility cycling somewhat

Excellent!

blorg

@ROK_ON- I was talking real price- obviously it is a safe bet the nominal price of almost anything will go up due to inflation. I may have been a bit off on the peak in real terms exceeding the 1970s peak but if I was it was not by much. There has been a big drop since then. I would agree with you that the long-term increase in price going forward is likely to outstrip inflation.

ROK ON

FWIW. Todays price of oil in 1983 money is 28usd. At its peak last year the price was 66usd. I can send the data series privately if you like. Can't do it publicly for other reasons.
I guess the general point I was struggling to make is that folk talking about sustainability rarely question what the real price is and get carried away at seemingly large nominal moves.

I prefer to be sustainable on a micro basis by adopting a creed of "living within my means where possible."
If more people lived within their means then we would not be having sustainability debates, as many more things would be sustainable.

Húrin

blorg wrote: »

It is all about efficient use of natural resources, not no use. Everything we do exploits natural resources in some form or another.

I didn't say anything about use of resources.

Bicycles, compared to cars, are a very efficient use of natural resources. Put simply, there is no more efficient way of transporting a human being over distance.

I am a utility cyclist (commuting, shopping etc), don't own a car and don't intend to (thanks to everyone for the lifts with my bike) but most of my cycling is leisure and would not be trips I would otherwise be making with another form of transport. Having said that it does keep me healthy and hopefully less of a burden on the health system.

I accept that taking a short haul flight just to cycle 175km around the Alps (with no intention of going grocery shopping) offsets my utility cycling somewhat

I definitely didn't say anything about that inane concept of "keeping within" or "offsetting" one's "carbon footprint".

I'm just asking people's opinions on whether the mass production of bicycles is technically and economically possible in the world after peak oil hits.

I'm just terrified of the idea of having to walk everywhere! Or use any vehicle with solid wheels!

blorg

Many think peak oil has already hit so I would say the answer to that question is yes. After peak oil is all about making more efficient use of the resource, oil doesn't suddenly just dry up and disappear overnight, it just gets steadily more expensive as supply contracts. Right now oil is damn cheap.

As it gets more expensive, more efficient use of the resource begins to appeal, so that fact that a bicycle uses far less oil to produce than a car and certainly far less to run makes it steadily more appealing as a transportation option. The price of bikes may go up, (as will _everything_ with more expensive oil) but if even if the price of both bike and car increased by the same amount (say they doubled), the bike increase is less in absolute terms and relative to income is more affordable. That is even before you factor in running costs.

This nothing to do with carbon footprints or environmental impact BTW it is just basic economics. As a commodity becomes scarce (and thus expensive) the market will favour more efficient use of the commodity. Making non-essential journeys in a car may look far less appealing than today.

Húrin

Ah yes I mean obviously cycling itself is sustainable. But the reason I asked on the cycling forum is because in sustainability circles knowledge of the technical details of the beloved bicycle tends to be low. Do you think that it will be possible to continue mass production of the alloys needed for all parts of bicycles? And again, rubber supply?

blorg

Húrin wrote: »

Ah yes I mean obviously cycling itself is sustainable. But the reason I asked on the cycling forum is because in sustainability circles knowledge of the technical details of the beloved bicycle tends to be low. Do you think that it will be possible to continue mass production of the alloys needed for all parts of bicycles? And again, rubber supply?

Yes, I do. It will just become more expensive, along with everything else. To be honest you will have bigger problems with famine, world war and the complete breakdown of society before mass produced bicycles go away.

Junior

I think most people approach this from the wrong side by asking are certain activities sustainable, I don't think the human race as we exist now is.

ROK ON

Juniors point re our current sustainability is interesting.

I have a theory that very many of the previous generations had far more challenging lives tan we have. Eg. Regular boom to bust economic cycles, regular wars (some pretty global), subsistence living for many, if work existed it was tough, poorly paid and bloody hard.

A UK labour politician said in the 1970's that "we've never had it so good"
Well for most folk, despite the recession life is easier than our parents and grandparents had it.
Junior may well be right - is this sustainable. I hope it is, but society maybe due a great schism or fracture. Maybe its time to prepare to HTFU.

Húrin

blorg do you really think that the facts justify such horrifying pessimism?

ROK ON wrote: »

Juniors point re our current sustainability is interesting.

I have a theory that very many of the previous generations had far more challenging lives tan we have. Eg. Regular boom to bust economic cycles, regular wars (some pretty global), subsistence living for many, if work existed it was tough, poorly paid and bloody hard.

A UK labour politician said in the 1970's that "we've never had it so good"
Well for most folk, despite the recession life is easier than our parents and grandparents had it.
Junior may well be right - is this sustainable. I hope it is, but society maybe due a great schism or fracture. Maybe its time to prepare to HTFU.

Yeah we definitely have it easier than ever. I'm trying to get some foresight to make sure it all doesn't go down the drain for my community and everyone else.

HTFU?

blorg

I didn't say we were going to have all those horrible things, although the most pessimistic on the subject do predict it. I do however think they are more likely than the pedal cycle going away. If anything peak oil will promote cycle use.

It will cause a hell of a lot of other problems though. If we get to the stage that a bike frame cannot be manufactured and tyres cannot be had for love or money you are probably going to be facing bigger problems.

(HTFU=Harden the Fúck Up)