Re: If you don't believe in Evolution, then why do you drive an SUV?

George Conklin

"Tom Sherman" <sunsetss0003@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:fmpc4t$r8l$1@registered.motzarella.org...
> Jack May wrote:
> > ...
> > I just previously posted the summary from a lot of bike statistics. I
> > guess it does absolutely no good to post anything on a newsgroup since a
lot
> > people seem to have no memory capability. At times I feel I will soon
need
> > to post URLs for simple math since so many people seem to know almost
> > nothing.
> >
> > http://www.rockandwater.net/piperma...une/000605.html
> >
> > "Bicyclist death rates per trip or per person mile of travel greatly
exceed
> > the rates for car occupants."....
> >
> But you are missing something important. Throw out accidents involving
> children, drunks on bicycles, wrong way cyclists, sidewalk cyclists,
> etc. I think you will find that the fatality rate for experienced
> commuter cyclists is less than 10% (and probably closer to 1% if you
> believe Forester) of that of people on bicycles (POBs) in general, on a
> per mile basis.
>
> Riding as a VEHICULAR CYCLIST is NOT dangerous, relative to other
> activities. Riding as a doofus is dangerous.

What nonsense. For autos, throw out drunk drivers, fatalities of
pedestrians, wrong-way drivers and everyone else you want, and consider only
"experienced drivers commuting to work," and voila, what do you have? FRAUD.

David Kerber

In article <WMKdnUXfZumWZhLanZ2dnUVZ_oCvnZ2d@comcast.com>,
jack.may@comcast.net says...
>
> I am talking about oil energy required, not food energy. It takes roughly
> ten units of oil energy to get one unit of food energy into your body.
> Farming, fertilizer, transportation, cooking, cleaning take lot of energy.
> For ideal cases, a bike may burn as much energy as a very efficient small
> car. For head winds and other non-ideal conditions the equivalent MPG
> drop down into the range of other cars.

So if I go on a ride and burn 600 kCal of energy over and above what I
would burn driving that same 30 miles or so, I would use 6000 kcal of
oil energy? Do you realize just how little gasoline it takes to account
for that much energy? My 30 mpg car would burn approx 1 gallon of
gasoline to go that distance, which is way more than 6000kCal.

After looking up the numbers, here's what I found:

According to the DOE, 1 (US) gal of gasoline provides approx 124000
BTU's of energy (an average across all common grades). 1 BTU is approx
252 calories (251.9958 according to my converter), so 1 gallon of
gasoline provides approx 31248000 calories, or 31248 kCal. So accepting
for the sake of argument your assertion that 1 cal of food energy takes
10 cal of oil energy, I would burn about 5 times as much gasoline energy
to drive 30 miles as I would to ride my bike that same distance. So
your math is rather off...

.....

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Tom Sherman

George Conklin wrote:
> "Tom Sherman" <sunsetss0003@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:fmpc4t$r8l$1@registered.motzarella.org...
>> Jack May wrote:
>>> ...
>>> I just previously posted the summary from a lot of bike statistics. I
>>> guess it does absolutely no good to post anything on a newsgroup since a
> lot
>>> people seem to have no memory capability. At times I feel I will soon
> need
>>> to post URLs for simple math since so many people seem to know almost
>>> nothing.
>>>
>>> http://www.rockandwater.net/piperma...une/000605.html
>>>
>>> "Bicyclist death rates per trip or per person mile of travel greatly
> exceed
>>> the rates for car occupants."....
>> >
>> But you are missing something important. Throw out accidents involving
>> children, drunks on bicycles, wrong way cyclists, sidewalk cyclists,
>> etc. I think you will find that the fatality rate for experienced
>> commuter cyclists is less than 10% (and probably closer to 1% if you
>> believe Forester) of that of people on bicycles (POBs) in general, on a
>> per mile basis.
>>
>> Riding as a VEHICULAR CYCLIST is NOT dangerous, relative to other
>> activities. Riding as a doofus is dangerous.
>
> What nonsense. For autos, throw out drunk drivers, fatalities of
> pedestrians, wrong-way drivers and everyone else you want, and consider only
> "experienced drivers commuting to work," and voila, what do you have? FRAUD.
>
I guess this needs some explanation. I CAN control HOW I ride, and
thereby greatly reduce MY risk while cycling. That, of course, is what
is of real interest (Duh).

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"And never forget, life ultimately makes failures of all people."
- A. Derleth

Tadej Brezina

Jack May wrote:

> "Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
> news:478f1a24$0$10578$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
>
>>Jack May wrote:
>>
>>
>>>"Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
>>>news:478dd176$0$28520$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
>>>
>>>
>>>>Jack May wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>"Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
>>>>>news:478b1a13$0$11610$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>George Conklin wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>"Tom Sherman" <sunsetss0003@REMOVETHISyahoo.com> wrote in message
>>>
>>>Fitness is probably countered by the very high injury and death rate of
>>>riding a bicycle.
>>
>>I do not know the statistics for the US.
>>In my country, and I guess it's not any different in other European
>>countries, the death and injury rate of cycling is almost below the
>>classical margin of measureability.
>
> Extremely unlikely!

Maybe in 'your world'.
As a matter of fact thats status quo.

>> And those few fatalities that occur
>>on bikes are practically never 'alone accidents' but cyclist hit by cars
>>due to bad infrastructure design (namely separated cycle paths at
>>intersections).
>>So your statement is irrelvant quality and quantity-wise.
>
> That is how lies are fabricated. That is not how accident and death rates
> are compiled.

No lies, probably just not fitting into your concept. Or not valid for
the US, but not a law of nature. Probably just a bad transport system
habitat for cyclist.

> I just previously posted the summary from a lot of bike statistics. I
> guess it does absolutely no good to post anything on a newsgroup since a lot
> people seem to have no memory capability. At times I feel I will soon need
> to post URLs for simple math since so many people seem to know almost
> nothing.
> http://www.rockandwater.net/piperma...une/000605.html
> "Bicyclist death rates per trip or per person mile of travel greatly exceed
> the rates for car occupants."

Maybe in the US, matter of fact, in Austria - which is definitely not a
cycling friendly country in comparison to NL or DK it is definitely
(national statistics bureau and national transport safety agency data,
EU comission data) the opposite is true by a rate of 1 to 4 on a death
per trip basis.

>>>Ecology? Doubtful because of the high oil consumption required to for the
>>>extra fuel needed for the food to power the bike rider. Riders are
>>>small in number now, but if they became large we run into some of the
>>>world wide problems we are having now with ethanol from corn.
>>
>>Wow, honestly Jack, I've read many statements from you that I do disagree
>>strongly with. A lot of them I would even consider as utter nonsense, as
>>proven by many others on these boards often. But the above is the peak of
>>nonsense so far! Ridiculous!
>
> You can not make such a statement just looking at how much energy the body
> uses to power the bike. Not only are my statements rational, they are
> part of normal research these days. Your statement is nonsense and
> ridiculous by the standards of energy research these days.

Definitely not, as the same principle applies, see below.

>>As you consider yourself as a guy with technological insight: How's the
>>relationship in energy consumption ratio of additional energy needed for
>>moving human body and bicycle one one hand side and on the other of moving
>>1000+ kg of vehicle and one human body on average?
>>One or two (maybe even three) orders of magnitude?
>
> I am talking about oil energy required, not food energy.

Yeah, so how much crude oil (fossil fuels) do you use more to produce
the more food if more people would cycle?
How much? Please do not, as you are on the spear-head of energy research
is that in comparison to fossil fuel burned by cars?

> It takes roughly
> ten units of oil energy to get one unit of food energy into your body.
> Farming, fertilizer, transportation, cooking, cleaning take lot of energy.
> For ideal cases, a bike may burn as much energy as a very efficient small
> car.

Complete bullshit.
Let's do one estimation.
The human's base energy consumption is a function of the person, so
let's leave that aside, as we consider the same person driving and cycling.
An estimated avg. gasoline consumption by the car is abt. 8 l/100km.
Gasolin comes in at abt. 32 MJ/l.
The additional energy consumption by the human body for car driving is
given *) between 5.9 and 13.4 kJ/min
Cyclists' energy is: 19.7 kJ/min for 15 km/h and 32.8 kJ/min for 20km/h
(Conk use appropriate smaller numbers!)
Now lets take a route length of 100 km.

Car: 8 l * 32 MJ/l = 256,000 kJ/100km

Driver: let's estimate we are driving at an avg. speed of 50 km/h, that
needs us 2 hours for the distance.
120 min * (13,4 + 5,9) / 2 = 1,158 kJ/100km

Cyclist: 100 km / 20 km/h = 5 h = 300 min
300 min * 32,8 kJ/min = 9,840 kJ/100km

Cyclist: 9,840 KJ/100km
Driver plus car: 257,158 KJ/km
That's 1 to 26.

So now you are trying to tell us, that the additional 17 KJ/min that the
cyclist uses additionally to the driver increases the food-production
induced fossil energy use by as much as 25 times!??

That's ridiculiousness V2.0!

*) german classic of ergonometrics: (Hetinger, Kaminsky, Schmalle 1981)

Tadej
--
"Vergleich es mit einer Pflanze - die wächst auch nur dann gut, wenn du
sie nicht jeden zweiten Tag aus der Erde reißt, um nachzusehen, ob sie
schon Wurzeln geschlagen hat."
<Martina Diel in d.t.r>

Tadej Brezina

> Complete bullshit.
> Let's do one estimation.
> The human's base energy consumption is a function of the person, so
> let's leave that aside, as we consider the same person driving and cycling.
> An estimated avg. gasoline consumption by the car is abt. 8 l/100km.
> Gasolin comes in at abt. 32 MJ/l.
> The additional energy consumption by the human body for car driving is
> given *) between 5.9 and 13.4 kJ/min
> Cyclists' energy is: 19.7 kJ/min for 15 km/h and 32.8 kJ/min for 20km/h
> (Conk use appropriate smaller numbers!)
> Now lets take a route length of 100 km.
>
> Car: 8 l * 32 MJ/l = 256,000 kJ/100km
>
> Driver: let's estimate we are driving at an avg. speed of 50 km/h, that
> needs us 2 hours for the distance.
> 120 min * (13,4 + 5,9) / 2 = 1,158 kJ/100km
>
> Cyclist: 100 km / 20 km/h = 5 h = 300 min
> 300 min * 32,8 kJ/min = 9,840 kJ/100km
>
> Cyclist: 9,840 KJ/100km
> Driver plus car: 257,158 KJ/km

Typo!
That should mean:
"Driver plus car: 257,159 KJ/100km"

Tadej
--
"Vergleich es mit einer Pflanze - die wächst auch nur dann gut, wenn du
sie nicht jeden zweiten Tag aus der Erde reißt, um nachzusehen, ob sie
schon Wurzeln geschlagen hat."
<Martina Diel in d.t.r>

Tadej Brezina

David Kerber wrote:

> In article <WMKdnUXfZumWZhLanZ2dnUVZ_oCvnZ2d@comcast.com>,
> jack.may@comcast.net says...
>
>>I am talking about oil energy required, not food energy. It takes roughly
>>ten units of oil energy to get one unit of food energy into your body.
>>Farming, fertilizer, transportation, cooking, cleaning take lot of energy.
>>For ideal cases, a bike may burn as much energy as a very efficient small
>>car. For head winds and other non-ideal conditions the equivalent MPG
>>drop down into the range of other cars.
>
>
> So if I go on a ride and burn 600 kCal of energy over and above what I
> would burn driving that same 30 miles or so, I would use 6000 kcal of
> oil energy? Do you realize just how little gasoline it takes to account
> for that much energy? My 30 mpg car would burn approx 1 gallon of
> gasoline to go that distance, which is way more than 6000kCal.
>
> After looking up the numbers, here's what I found:
>
> According to the DOE, 1 (US) gal of gasoline provides approx 124000
> BTU's of energy (an average across all common grades). 1 BTU is approx
> 252 calories (251.9958 according to my converter), so 1 gallon of
> gasoline provides approx 31248000 calories, or 31248 kCal. So accepting
> for the sake of argument your assertion that 1 cal of food energy takes
> 10 cal of oil energy, I would burn about 5 times as much gasoline energy
> to drive 30 miles as I would to ride my bike that same distance. So
> your math is rather off...

Hey don't be so hard on Jack, he's just doing calculations according to
"normal research these days"!

Tadej
--
"Vergleich es mit einer Pflanze - die wächst auch nur dann gut, wenn du
sie nicht jeden zweiten Tag aus der Erde reißt, um nachzusehen, ob sie
schon Wurzeln geschlagen hat."
<Martina Diel in d.t.r>

George Conklin

"Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
news:47960057$0$8024$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
> David Kerber wrote:
>
> > In article <WMKdnUXfZumWZhLanZ2dnUVZ_oCvnZ2d@comcast.com>,
> > jack.may@comcast.net says...
> >
> >>I am talking about oil energy required, not food energy. It takes
roughly
> >>ten units of oil energy to get one unit of food energy into your body.
> >>Farming, fertilizer, transportation, cooking, cleaning take lot of
energy.
> >>For ideal cases, a bike may burn as much energy as a very efficient
small
> >>car. For head winds and other non-ideal conditions the equivalent MPG
> >>drop down into the range of other cars.
> >
> >
> > So if I go on a ride and burn 600 kCal of energy over and above what I
> > would burn driving that same 30 miles or so, I would use 6000 kcal of
> > oil energy? Do you realize just how little gasoline it takes to account
> > for that much energy? My 30 mpg car would burn approx 1 gallon of
> > gasoline to go that distance, which is way more than 6000kCal.
> >
> > After looking up the numbers, here's what I found:
> >
> > According to the DOE, 1 (US) gal of gasoline provides approx 124000
> > BTU's of energy (an average across all common grades). 1 BTU is approx
> > 252 calories (251.9958 according to my converter), so 1 gallon of
> > gasoline provides approx 31248000 calories, or 31248 kCal. So accepting
> > for the sake of argument your assertion that 1 cal of food energy takes
> > 10 cal of oil energy, I would burn about 5 times as much gasoline energy
> > to drive 30 miles as I would to ride my bike that same distance. So
> > your math is rather off...
>
> Hey don't be so hard on Jack, he's just doing calculations according to
> "normal research these days"!
>
> Tadej

Part of smart growth buildings these days in the USA is to include
showers, clothes washing services and chaning rooms in eco-smart buildings
so bike riders can enter the business world in proper clothing. Europe has
many fewer hot days than we do in the southern part of the USA.

Tom Sherman

George Conklin wrote:
> "Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
> news:47960057$0$8024$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
>> David Kerber wrote:
>>
>>> In article <WMKdnUXfZumWZhLanZ2dnUVZ_oCvnZ2d@comcast.com>,
>>> jack.may@comcast.net says...
>>>
>>>> I am talking about oil energy required, not food energy. It takes
> roughly
>>>> ten units of oil energy to get one unit of food energy into your body.
>>>> Farming, fertilizer, transportation, cooking, cleaning take lot of
> energy.
>>>> For ideal cases, a bike may burn as much energy as a very efficient
> small
>>>> car. For head winds and other non-ideal conditions the equivalent MPG
>>>> drop down into the range of other cars.
>>>
>>> So if I go on a ride and burn 600 kCal of energy over and above what I
>>> would burn driving that same 30 miles or so, I would use 6000 kcal of
>>> oil energy? Do you realize just how little gasoline it takes to account
>>> for that much energy? My 30 mpg car would burn approx 1 gallon of
>>> gasoline to go that distance, which is way more than 6000kCal.
>>>
>>> After looking up the numbers, here's what I found:
>>>
>>> According to the DOE, 1 (US) gal of gasoline provides approx 124000
>>> BTU's of energy (an average across all common grades). 1 BTU is approx
>>> 252 calories (251.9958 according to my converter), so 1 gallon of
>>> gasoline provides approx 31248000 calories, or 31248 kCal. So accepting
>>> for the sake of argument your assertion that 1 cal of food energy takes
>>> 10 cal of oil energy, I would burn about 5 times as much gasoline energy
>>> to drive 30 miles as I would to ride my bike that same distance. So
>>> your math is rather off...
>> Hey don't be so hard on Jack, he's just doing calculations according to
>> "normal research these days"!
>>
>> Tadej
>
> Part of smart growth buildings these days in the USA is to include
> showers, clothes washing services and chaning rooms in eco-smart buildings
> so bike riders can enter the business world in proper clothing. Europe has
> many fewer hot days than we do in the southern part of the USA.
>
You will want a shower after riding a bicycle in the upper Midwest on a
summer day.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
"And never forget, life ultimately makes failures of all people."
- A. Derleth

Tadej Brezina

George Conklin wrote:

> "Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
> news:47960057$0$8024$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
>
>>David Kerber wrote:
>>
>>
>>>In article <WMKdnUXfZumWZhLanZ2dnUVZ_oCvnZ2d@comcast.com>,
>>>jack.may@comcast.net says...
>>>
>>>
>>>>I am talking about oil energy required, not food energy. It takes
>
> roughly
>
>>>>ten units of oil energy to get one unit of food energy into your body.
>>>>Farming, fertilizer, transportation, cooking, cleaning take lot of
>
> energy.
>
>>>>For ideal cases, a bike may burn as much energy as a very efficient
>
> small
>
>>>>car. For head winds and other non-ideal conditions the equivalent MPG
>>>>drop down into the range of other cars.
>>>
>>>
>>>So if I go on a ride and burn 600 kCal of energy over and above what I
>>>would burn driving that same 30 miles or so, I would use 6000 kcal of
>>>oil energy? Do you realize just how little gasoline it takes to account
>>>for that much energy? My 30 mpg car would burn approx 1 gallon of
>>>gasoline to go that distance, which is way more than 6000kCal.
>>>
>>>After looking up the numbers, here's what I found:
>>>
>>>According to the DOE, 1 (US) gal of gasoline provides approx 124000
>>>BTU's of energy (an average across all common grades). 1 BTU is approx
>>>252 calories (251.9958 according to my converter), so 1 gallon of
>>>gasoline provides approx 31248000 calories, or 31248 kCal. So accepting
>>>for the sake of argument your assertion that 1 cal of food energy takes
>>>10 cal of oil energy, I would burn about 5 times as much gasoline energy
>>>to drive 30 miles as I would to ride my bike that same distance. So
>>>your math is rather off...
>>
>>Hey don't be so hard on Jack, he's just doing calculations according to
>>"normal research these days"!
>>
>>Tadej
>
>
> Part of smart growth buildings these days in the USA is to include
> showers, clothes washing services and chaning rooms in eco-smart buildings
> so bike riders can enter the business world in proper clothing. Europe has
> many fewer hot days than we do in the southern part of the USA.

Nice post Conk, nevertheless wrong location of the thread.
Yes you are probably true regarding moist and heat in the south. But
please do not compare apples and pears. Europe is not of singular
dimension, it has quite a respectable N-S extension and has very hot
places in the south too.
So compare e.g. New Orleans to Napoli or Boston to Hamburg.

Tadej
--
"Vergleich es mit einer Pflanze - die wächst auch nur dann gut, wenn du
sie nicht jeden zweiten Tag aus der Erde reißt, um nachzusehen, ob sie
schon Wurzeln geschlagen hat."
<Martina Diel in d.t.r>

David Kerber

In article <ZLednUUgZoEj-gvanZ2dnUVZ_gKdnZ2d@comcast.com>,
jack.may@comcast.net says...
>
> Claiming that a bicycle is efficient in oil use is a real stretch to say the
> least

The examples you list are rather extreme cases, however. If you eat
stuff that isn't grown on another continent, and/or is packaged near
where it's picked, those numbers change rather dramatically.

However, you were the one who stated a 10:1 ratio between food energy
and oil energy, so that's the number I used, and a bike comes out ahead
using that number and just the gasoline energy that the car consumes
directly. If you take into consideration the energy used to produce and
transport your car's gasoline to travel that 30 miles, the car comes out
even worse, and the other externalities which are higher for cars than
for bikes (road wear and resulting maintenance, etc), it comes out even
worse.


--
Remove the ns_ from if replying by e-mail (but keep posts in the
newsgroups if possible).

George Conklin

"Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
news:479702eb$0$28520$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
> George Conklin wrote:
>
> > "Tadej Brezina" <tadej_usenet@gmx.at> wrote in message
> > news:47960057$0$8024$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at...
> >
> >>David Kerber wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>In article <WMKdnUXfZumWZhLanZ2dnUVZ_oCvnZ2d@comcast.com>,
> >>>jack.may@comcast.net says...
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>I am talking about oil energy required, not food energy. It takes
> >
> > roughly
> >
> >>>>ten units of oil energy to get one unit of food energy into your body.
> >>>>Farming, fertilizer, transportation, cooking, cleaning take lot of
> >
> > energy.
> >
> >>>>For ideal cases, a bike may burn as much energy as a very efficient
> >
> > small
> >
> >>>>car. For head winds and other non-ideal conditions the equivalent
MPG
> >>>>drop down into the range of other cars.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>So if I go on a ride and burn 600 kCal of energy over and above what I
> >>>would burn driving that same 30 miles or so, I would use 6000 kcal of
> >>>oil energy? Do you realize just how little gasoline it takes to
account
> >>>for that much energy? My 30 mpg car would burn approx 1 gallon of
> >>>gasoline to go that distance, which is way more than 6000kCal.
> >>>
> >>>After looking up the numbers, here's what I found:
> >>>
> >>>According to the DOE, 1 (US) gal of gasoline provides approx 124000
> >>>BTU's of energy (an average across all common grades). 1 BTU is approx
> >>>252 calories (251.9958 according to my converter), so 1 gallon of
> >>>gasoline provides approx 31248000 calories, or 31248 kCal. So
accepting
> >>>for the sake of argument your assertion that 1 cal of food energy takes
> >>>10 cal of oil energy, I would burn about 5 times as much gasoline
energy
> >>>to drive 30 miles as I would to ride my bike that same distance. So
> >>>your math is rather off...
> >>
> >>Hey don't be so hard on Jack, he's just doing calculations according to
> >>"normal research these days"!
> >>
> >>Tadej
> >
> >
> > Part of smart growth buildings these days in the USA is to include
> > showers, clothes washing services and chaning rooms in eco-smart
buildings
> > so bike riders can enter the business world in proper clothing. Europe
has
> > many fewer hot days than we do in the southern part of the USA.
>
> Nice post Conk, nevertheless wrong location of the thread.
> Yes you are probably true regarding moist and heat in the south. But
> please do not compare apples and pears. Europe is not of singular
> dimension, it has quite a respectable N-S extension and has very hot
> places in the south too.
> So compare e.g. New Orleans to Napoli or Boston to Hamburg.

New York is really opposite Madrid on the maps.

David Kerber

In article <479701e3$0$28520$3b214f66@tunews.univie.ac.at>,
tadej_usenet@gmx.at says...
>
> Jack, as usually, you are right!
> Bicycles have no chance in comparison to walking regarding their
> ecological impact.

Overall impact, possibly, but in just energy consumption terms, cycling
is much more efficient than walking.

> Your original claim, that bicycles might be as low in energy consumption
> as cars is a masterpiece of ridiculousness - making intelligent design
> seem respectable in comparison.

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Remove the ns_ from if replying by e-mail (but keep posts in the
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