You should bike more, it would improve your health. In first world countries, people use mostly the good infrastructure of bikes and public means of transport, but as you live in one, you definitely know it and use public transport.
There are other means of storage, beside batteries, but you probably know this, and also other means of cleaner energy, beside sun, which are more efficient.
Like said, try a bike for the 20 miles you ride a day, as this is easily done in Europe for most people.
Most north american cities arent bike friendly… they are big and spread without ciclovies. And many places the snow cleaning isnt good for being able to bike the whole year long
Sadly, North America has to do a lot of rework, to become a first world region for its population. In most North European countries, where snow is a norm for half of the year, one can bike freely. And these countries are much further North of Edmonton, Canada, and still people can bike, it is a matter of civilisation, I think.
I Live not very far from Edmonton but never visited. I heard about how the city invested in Eco solutions but it is a one example of a rare one... Maybe Vancouver also have a good investment on that too. But usually, there aren't investments like that! My city isn't big and it still is poor the investment of the city on that matter.
My nephew is there in Edmonton. He is doing a PhD in computer science there. I have been there many times.
I need to visit there... around 5h driving north from here... they have a nice shopping mal with a giant indoor water park there! good spot to go during the winter hehe
I just picked Edmonton, as it seems the most developed and furthest North city. I've never been to Canada, where I would wish to take the wife and kid for a couple of weeks from Vancouver to Montreal. In Europe, to be fair, the distances are smaller, but nevertheless, one could bike from Denmark to Italy easily, without an issue, as there are bike highways in most places.
We live in the South, so snow isn't a problem. However for 6 months it not exactly bike friendly due to the heat. Also car and gasoline is so cheap the society never felt the need to develop public transportation.
Yes I forgot about the gas price... I come originally from a country where the gasoline is crazy expensive, and then in Canada is much cheaper( and I know that in the US is way cheaper than here hehe)
Usually bottled water is more expensive than gasoline here :)