# The energy efficiency of organic machines

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-energy-efficiency-of-organic-machines/483766>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [January 30, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-energy-efficiency-of-organic-machines/483766 "2009-01-30T19:30:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-energy-efficiency-of-organic-machines/483766/1 "2009-01-30T19:30:30Z")

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You know how they’re always telling you to ride your bike to work, use the stairs instead of the elevator, yadda yadda yadda?

One part of that, I assume, is the desire to live more ecologically/environmentally friendly lifestyles. My question is: How does the environmental impact of having to provide caloric energy for living beings factor into that comparison? Is it really better for the planet to feed humans to perform manual labor instead of using specially-designed machines with specially-designed fuels for very particular jobs?

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**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-energy-efficiency-of-organic-machines/483766/2 "2009-01-30T19:52:49Z")

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Well, in America, generally we’ve gone ahead and eaten surplus calories above and beyond what we’d need to use the stairs instead of the elevator. So we’re not consuming any more than we would have to start with.

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**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2009, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-energy-efficiency-of-organic-machines/483766/3 "2009-01-30T19:57:03Z")

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We did this awhile back: [How "green" is biking to work? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=470462)

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**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [January 31, 2009, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-energy-efficiency-of-organic-machines/483766/4 "2009-01-31T19:04:53Z")

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Pwned by the human Google.

Thank you 🙂