A full Boeing 747 is almost twice as energy efficient per passenger-kilometer (the energy it takes to transport one passenger for one kilometer) as a gasoline car with one passenger. https://www.withouthotair.com/c20/page_128.shtml
The first time I read that book years ago (highly recommended, by the way) I remember being somewhat shocked by that. Or to flip it around, if your baseline mental model is that a normal commuter gasoline car with one passenger is "not too bad" in terms of energy consumption, the primary problem with air travel is the distance traveled, not the per passenger-kilometer energy efficiency.
Of course electric trains beat everything handily in the efficiency game except for bicycles. Incidentally, despite the high efficiency of human physiology for bicycling (we're efficient at metabolizing calories from food and converting that energy into motion, and cycling is mechanically very efficient compared to walking), I remember seeing a scientific paper finding that ebikes can actually be more energy efficient on the margins.
Recumbent bikes are more energy efficient than upright bikes even at very slow commuting speeds like 15 km/h. Velomobiles (recumbent with air shield) are more efficient still. Riding a velomobile may the only thing dorkier than piloting hot air balloons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWM0CHJeYAI
@pervognsen This disappointed me in the opposite direction when I discovered how inefficient hiking is (especially as you increase walking speed) compared to exercising on a bike. You really need to bike hard to burn calories.
@zwarich Yeah, incline treadmill (e.g. 15% incline, 6 km/h) is one of the standard recommendations for cardio if you just want to burn calories with low injury risk, etc.
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