4 Tons Of Plants per Mile to Ride In Your Car

Roland Piquepaille writes "As you might know, I enjoy big numbers. So it's just natural that I was attracted by this news release from the University of Utah, "Bad Mileage: 98 tons of plants per gallon." "A staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material is required to produce each gallon of gasoline we burn in our cars, SUVs, trucks and other vehicles." For a reasonably efficient car, riding 25 miles per gallon, this translates to 4 tons of prehistoric plants per mile, or more than two tons per kilometer. The research paper also mentions that everyday, we are using the fossil fuel equivalent of all the plants growing during a whole year just for our cars. Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are. This analysis describes the calculations and contains other details about the research paper which will be published in November by Climate Change."

say no to cars?

[QEDog]

Reminds me of an article posted in /. before that said:

"Building more roads to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity"

Inefficient?

[jeffkjo1]

Even if these numbers are too large, this still makes you think about how inefficient our cars are.

I think it shows how inefficient mother nature is. Stupid nature, not forseeing our need to drive Hummers and Ford Excursions!

Thank goodness for research like this

[TopShelf]

That certainly explains the foul smell I can't get out of the seats...

Athlons and Pentiums

[Brento]

In a related story, the University of Utah pointed out that modern desktop computer processes consume roughly 14 tons per hour of running SETI, a popular screen saver. "At some point, you have to wonder just how important it is to find alien life," said Professor Ima T. Hugger, "when you're killing so much life here on our own planet just to find out. One little green man simply isn't worth twenty redwood trees - try shutting down your machine once in a while, or switch to that nice screen saver with the rotating Windows logo."

When asked about the energy required to create his polyester pants, Hugger refused comment.

fat=inefficiency

[Madcapjack]

someone ought to calculate the increase in fuel efficiency we'd gain in the U.S. if we weren't a nation of over-weight Big Mac eaters.

And I thought

[OverlordQ]

rods to the hogshead was bad enough, now we got Plant ton/(km|mi)!? WHEN WILL IT END!?

That's interesting, but the real question is...

[pulse2600]

...how many Libraries of Congress is that?

No, what it really is

[Don'tTreadOnMe]

It's not really about how inefficient our automobiles are. It's really about how inefficient the damned plants are at making fuel. There's the tragedy in this !

Atomic energy will save us...

[dpbsmith]

...don't worry, we'll soon have energy too cheap to meter. We'll unleash the limitless, endless, bountiful power of the peaceful atom to provide an inexhaustible supply of energy for all mankind.

A single aspirin-sized pellet of uranium will provide Mr. and Mrs. America with enough power to run their car for a lifetime. And soon, the peaceful atom will provide a propulsion source that will make family helicars practical and affordable.

Scientists expect this to happen in a few short decades--perhaps before the end of the sixties.

At least, that's what the science teacher said when I was in junior high school.

Re:burgers

[pinkboi]

<liberal hippie mode on> No, really? What if we just ate those plants instead? Hell, then we could feed more people than just a smaller amount of us fat Americans.
<liberal hippie mode off>

<fat American mode on> Don't worry, it doesn't even come close to the amount of trash I make. If someone doesn't eat those cows, they will just go to waste anyway.

Re:burgers

[ekephart]

Convenient, you didn't turn fat American mode off.

Re:What's the point here?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

The point is we should celebrate. Those plants died believing that that was all there was to their existence. But millions of years later the energy they stored during their lifetimes has found a new purpose. Maybe millions of years after you die you'll find a purpose too. I think it's wonderful.

Not only that...

[kindbud]

The steel used to build your car's frame and body was produced in a supernova over 5 billion years ago. Only a tiny fraction of the energy generated by fusing at least 4 solar masses of hydrogen went into the production of the iron, chromium and carbon that was used to make the steel. A whole solar system was likely destroyed in the process.

Automobiles are far more inefficient than even this article implies.

Re:say no to cars?

[proj_2501]

institute widespread culling of humantiy, reduce headcount with vigor

You won't mind if we start with you, then? I mean, you spelled 'humanity' wrong.

That's small potatoes

[CatOne]

I mean... you realize the metal in the car had to be generated by a SUPERNOVA explosion right? Which means it had to "burn" in a star for billions of years, and then explode cataclysmically, and then cruise around the universe, and accrete around our star, and eventually for a planet, and go like that for a couple billion years, before it was extracted from ore and made into your car.

How monumentally inefficient! We should all be living as hunter/gatherers, like the Bushmen of the Kalahari. :-/

We Need Better Plants

[msheppard]

Maybe the PLANTS should work on their efficency of converting sunlight to gasoline. How much sunlight goes to waste?

Won't someone think of the children?

M@

Shamelessly wasteful!

[guacamolefoo]

A staggering 98 tons of prehistoric, buried plant material is required to produce each gallon of gasoline we burn in our cars, SUVs, trucks and other vehicles.

Next thing you know, they'll be saying that it takes hundreds of tons of hydrogen to fuse to allow a solar powered car to drive a mile. How wasteful!

GF.

Re:burgers

[MoP030]

i want a burger that contains _any_ actual cow...

Re:burgers

[nizo]

But you know what keeps me up at night? Our bodies are made up of matter that came from dying stars, how many stars had to die to make each one of us???

The guy who wrote this seems a bit optimistic

[FearUncertaintyDoubt]

"We would have to choose between our rain forests and our vehicles and appliances."

Timmmmmmberrrrrr!

So let's kill more plants

[Pedrito]

You know, a lot of people have been complaining about the slash and burn of the Amazon rain forest, but I think people are really just thinking ahead and trying to make more oil. You guys are so short-sighted.

Re:Ride a motorcycle.

[Ummon]

Except it sucks to ride a motorcycle in the snow. And the rain. I'd love to ride my motorcycle ('02 VFR800) 365 days a year, but here in Colorado the weather only cooperates about half the year. I saw a vehicle in Europe that was an enclosed 2 person motorcycle and haven't been able to find out who manufactures it. If I could get one of those, I'd ditch my car.

Re:say no to cars?

[Paracelcus]

When you consider that the conditions needed to create the oil and coal fields were a one time only occurance and will never happen again, isn't it a crying shame to squander these resources on two block trips to the grocery store in a Hummer?

Instead of driving five miles to the park to jog, just walk to the store and back.

My mother used to walk all over Brooklyn pulling a little shopping cart behind her going from store to store buying "whats on sale", she lived to be 75 and was as strong as three cell phone toting yuppies!

Re:burgers

[Rogerborg]

I note that you cited a PETA claim as one of your sources. If PETA told me that cows eat grass, I'd go and check myself to make sure.

Beef cattle are slaughtered at 18 months. Add a little more for the breeding cows, and you can push it to two years average. Find your own links.

Since your 700/100 lbs per cow is from a completely unreferenced anecdote, I'll throw in one of my own. McDonalds burgers are 100% beef, because they are (very nearly) 100% of the cow. Picture a huge cow sized grinder, making cow paste. You don't have to believe me; instead, find me anyone who works in the slaughter industry who'll eat a fast food burger.

Re:burgers

[Brandybuck]

We need to conserve people. We're running out of dying stars.