Laura for a Livable Climate

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29 Posts
All I want is... a stable climate, clean air, social justice, racial justice, mass transit, safe streets… you know, just the basics. #ElectrifyEverything
Twitterhttps://twitter.com/DoBetterLaura
I am thrilled by the energy and cost efficiency of electric bicycles, but what keeps me riding every day is the JOY of active travel!
Here's to another year of chance encounters with friends, time outside, gentle exercise, and all the best parking spaces.🧵 (9/9)
Even if every kWh of our electricity came from natural gas, shifting a trip from our Subaru to our least efficient e-bike, the Urban Arrow, would eliminate 99.97% of greenhouse gas emissions.
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Our electricity is a bit cleaner than average. More than 60% of our electricity came from our rooftop solar array last year, and less than 14% came from fossil fuel power plants! But our power mix is only small part of the picture.
🧵 (7/9)
1.9 lbs of emissions... for all of 2023 (4,155 miles). Each trip to my son's school in the car produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the total generated by charging our three e-bike batteries for an entire year.
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Driving an additional 4,155 miles in our Subaru Outback would have resulted in 3700 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions.

Can you guess how much our e-bikes emitted over that distance?
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We used 90 kWh of electricity to charge our bikes in 2023, and all that "fuel" cost us less than $10.

We average 46 miles per kWh across our three e-bikes. Our least efficient, the Urban Arrow gets about 40 miles per kWh, while our most efficient, the Batch Commuter, gets about 80 miles per kWh. To put that into perspective, a Tesla Model 3 gets 3.9 mi/kWh and a Ford Lightning gets 2 mi/kWh.
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Our e-bikes saved us from buying 189 gallons of gas in 2023. That's enough gasoline to fill a hot tub, plus $651 back in our bank account. Add that to the roughly $8,000 we saved last year by not owning, maintaining, and insuring a second car.
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We use our e-bikes nearly every day, mainly for trips to practical destinations we would otherwise drive to.

The electric assist makes it easy to carry everything we need—briefcase, work bag, backpack, groceries, and the kiddo's violin—even for this wheezy asthmatic.

All our bikes are set up so we can carry our 5 year old, and our largest e-cargo bike can even carry a full-sized adult passenger.
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Our family rode our three electric bicycles a total of 4,155 miles last year—equivalent to a road trip from Boston to Alaska!

Here's a thread unspooling some of what we learned along the way.
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#eBikeRevolution #eBike #eBikes #EV #ElectrifyEverything #Climate #ClimateAction #Emissions #Renewables

My 5-year old and I will embark on a cross-country train trip tomorrow morning!

Over the next three days, we will travel from Boston to Denver on Amtrak with a one-night stop in Chicago.

Kiddo and I are both psyched! Ready to enjoy the scenic views and read lots of books about trains.

#Sustainable #Travel #Amtrak #Trains #SlowTravel #Family