> Therefore, filling up my Subaru just once requires 2,156,000 pounds of > dead stuff. Miles per gallon? Heh! I get 8.8 inches per pound of dead > stuff! On my bike, I can probably get about 30 miles out of a > quarter-pounder (which I don't eat, but that's another topic).
I did some digging and came up with the following: There are lots of ways to measure the total 'impact' of your transportation choices. The original article (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/SciTech/DyeHard/ dyehard-1.html for those with short memories) addressed only 2 factors: * total mass of fuel M(gasoline) = 98 tons of dead animals/ gal. gasoline * sustainability, as measured by time-to-renew T(gasoline) = 400 years to renew fossil fuel reserves for a single years use, which I think is a extreme underestimate Lets compare with 3 of my favorite fuel sources. Just for fun, I threw in total cost per mile All of these comparisons ignore the impacts of transportation and production (I'll leave that as an excercise for the readers). Cars: C(gasoline) = $1.75 /gal gasoline * ( 1 gal/30 mile-per-gallon) = $.58/ mile (Note: if you drive a brand new Ford Exploiter instead of my 12 year-old Honda, you can double that. If you drive a fucking Hummer, you should put sugar in your tank) Beer: 40 cal/100 ml * 3.55 = 142 cal/bottle (12oz) [ source: http://www.beer100.com/beercalories.htm ] M(beer) = 35 cal/mile / 142 cal/bottle = .25 bottle/mile C(beer) = .25 bottle/mile * $1/bottle * 40 mi/week = $10/week Cheese: 100 cal/oz cheese [source: http://www.annecollins.com/calories/calories-cheese.htm] M(Cheese) = 35 cal/mile / (100 cal/oz) = .35 oz/mile C(cheese) = .0218 lb/mile * $10/lb = $.22/mile Rice: 350 cal/bowl [source: See Arthur's post Mary C. Holcomb et al., Transportation Energy Book: Edition 9 (Oak Ridge National Laboratory, 1987); President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, private communication ] M(rice) = 35 cal/mile / ( 350 cal/bowl) = .1 bowl/mile C(Rice) = $.073/bowl rice (???) / 10 mile/bowl rice $.0073/mile As for Time-to-renew, my guess is a good organic farmer maintains a fairly sustainable operation; certainly a lot less than a factor of 400! -darin _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.danenet.org/mailman/listinfo/bikies
