On 2007 01 27 4:32 PM, "Pierre Abbat" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Friday 26 January 2007 22:43, Bill Hooper wrote:
>>> If that's too big or too small, there are others, like petajooules
>>> (PJ) and zetajoules (ZJ) and more that are appropriately and
>>> conveniently larger or smaller. (I don't know which one to suggest
>>> to use in place of your suggested "cubic mile of oil" because
>>> nowhere in your article did you specify how much energy there is in
>>> a cubic mile of oil.)
>
> A quick calculation with the units program says it's on the order of 100 EJ:
> You have: (mile3)*(0.9 g/ml)*(37 kJ/g)
> You want: EJ
> * 138.80045
> / 0.0072045873
>
> phma
>
Dear Pierre,
I have redone your calculation by going through these steps:
I began by changing everything to SI units
1 cubic mile = (1609.344 metres)^3 = 4 168 181 825 cubic metres.
The density of oil I took to be 920 kilograms per cubic metre taking an
average of three oils from California, 915 kg/m^3; Mexico, 973 kg/m^3; and
Texas, 873 kg/m^3 (See http://www.simetric.co.uk/si_liquids.htm )
The energy content of oil is assumed to be: 41.868 GJ/t = 41 868 000
J/kg (See:
http://au.geocities.com/daveclarkecb/EnergyUnits.html#Energy%20content%20of%
20fuels )
My calculation then went:
4 168 181 825 cubic metres x 920 kilograms per cubic metres x 41 868 000
J/kg = 1.605 523 x 10^20 joules
For convenience, I rounded this to 161 exajoules
As we agree on the order of magnitude (exajoules) but disagree on the
calculated energy value, I wonder if you would check my assumptions and my
calculation.
Cheers and thanks,
Pat Naughtin
PO Box 305 Belmont 3216
Geelong, Australia
61 3 5241 2008
Pat Naughtin is manager of http://www.metricationmatters.com an internet
website that primarily focuses on the many issues, methods and processes
that individuals, groups, companies, and nations use when upgrading to the
metric system. You can contact Pat Naughtin at
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
