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Shortage of bikes: why you have such a hard time buying a new one
BICLOU, EPISODE 47 - It has the power to disgust other cyclists with every climb.
We are of course talking about the electric bike and its battery, a small efficient car that can reach 25 km / h without pushing too much on the pedals.
In 2020, the sale of these electrically assisted bicycles exploded in France, with nearly 515,000 of these two wheels sold, or 30% more than in 2019. Less tiring than the mechanical bicycle, accessible to less sporty and less sporty. older, is there really such an ecological solution for city transport?
When we question the pilots of these gleaming machines, many people do not really see it as an environmental problem.
"It does not pollute at all, it is zero pollution" rejoices a father perched on a large orange electric cargo bike, Place de la Bastille.
“Yes it is polluting because we do not know how to recycle the batteries” tempers another, encountered a little further on the cycle path.
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To better assess how and why an electric bicycle pollutes, we must study its entire life cycle.
Firstly its manufacture, with the extraction of raw materials and the manufacturing stage at the factory.
Second, its use by the cyclist.
And finally its end of life, once the bike is thrown away.
Lithium batteries
The manufacturing stage is by far the most polluting.
“About 95% of the carbon footprint of the electrically assisted bicycle is linked to the manufacture of the bicycle itself” summarizes Anne de Bortoli, researcher in transport and environment at the Ecole des Ponts Paris-Tech.
She is one of the few specialists to have been able to quantify the carbon impact of our bikes.
If this indicator makes it possible to quantify the share of responsibility of our pedelecs in global warming, it does not make it possible on its own to assess all the pollution generated by the production of our bicycles, which contain electronic components with heavy consequences for ecosystems. and biodiversity. An electric bicycle battery contains several more or less rare metals. A large part of copper and aluminum, but also lithium, manganese, cobalt and nickel. In a 500-watt battery, there are approximately 40 grams of lithium, according to figures provided by Bosch, one of the giants of the sector.
Its extraction from giant swimming pools, mainly in Bolivia, Chile or Argentina, requires huge amounts of water and could endanger fragile ecosystems.
In Chile, mining activities are responsible for 65% of the region's water consumption.
Gourmet activities which are already pushing local farmers to source their supplies further afield.
Cobalt is mined under extremely difficult conditions by underpaid miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Without protection, they often dig with their bare hands in contact with dangerous materials.
One Tesla battery for 140 eBike batteries
These environmental impacts can nevertheless be put into perspective if we compare them to those of the electric car, whose technology also depends on lithium-ion batteries. An electric bicycle battery weighs on average 3 kilos, which is about 100 times less than that of an electric car. When asked, the Bosch brand recalls that around 5,000 to 8,000 cylindrical lithium cells are used for an automobile battery, against only 40 to 60 for a recent electric bicycle. To make a quick comparison, a Tesla Model S battery therefore consumes the same amount of lithium cells as 140 e-bike batteries.
Fortunately, the second stage in the life cycle of an electric bicycle is much less polluting: "In France, the consumption of electricity to charge the battery of your bicycle has very low impacts in terms of climate change", summarizes Anne de Bortoli. .
France is in fact 70% dependent on nuclear energy, which emits little CO2.
While this energy is largely carbon-free, it nevertheless poses other major environmental problems.
Recycle your bike?
Third step for our VAE: its end of life.
With a fleet of French electric bicycles still relatively recent, the question of the management of used batteries is emerging timidly.
But for the past three years, specialized channels have been responsible for recycling this somewhat specific waste.
25,000 parts could thus be recycled by the sector in 2020.
Thanks to this process, 70% of plastic and metal components can thus find a second breath.
"Recycled metals can be reused in other applications, as secondary raw materials, not necessarily to manufacture batteries but, for example, certain steels", explains Gilles Garin, director of SNAM in Saint-Quentin-Fallavier ( 38).
In this recycling site, batteries collected throughout France by the company Corepile are dismantled every week.
"It is these eco-organizations that send us complete pallets", specifies Gilles Garin, unwrapping a large box filled with exhausted batteries.
Once unpacked, these batteries are then carefully dismantled.
Inside the rigid shell, a host of colored cylinders: the cells.
“A battery is a succession of small batteries placed end to end,” explains the director.
The plastic casing is insulated, just like the printed circuits and electronic components.
The cells will spend several hours in the oven.
For recycling, they are heated to several hundred degrees in a thermolysis oven.
Once charred, the cylinders are crushed and separated.
Iron, copper, aluminum, lithium carbonate will then live a second life.
Despite the efforts of cycle manufacturers, the recycling rate for used batteries is currently only 8%.
Many used batteries still sleep too often in our drawers instead of being collected and processed.
Others are repackaged and will not join the industry until later.
To reduce the environmental impact of your electric bike, the solution is to use it as long as possible.
One way to cushion its footprint, by spreading it over a large number of kilometers.
“If you buy an electric-assisted bicycle on a whim and ultimately only use it 1,000 km, the carbon footprint per kilometer traveled is ultimately as high as that of using a car.
», Warns Anne de Bortoli.
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