Frederick Sparber wrote:
> I see also they are getting methane from landfills. That's great, but there > are not enough landfills provide all the energy we need. > Plenty of Feedlots, Dairies, Poultry and Hog Farms to help out there.
Sorry Fred, but the numbers simply do not add up. Compare the amount of energy you consume as food to the amount you consume as gasoline, natural gas and electricity. A person eats 2,000 kCal per day (8.4 MJ), and the average American consumes 928,000 btu per day (979 MJ) (Annual Energy Review, Table 1.5). Let us assume that in preparing food and rearing livestock we throw away 10 times more energy than we eat, in the form of garbage, and manure in feed lots. This is highly optimistic, because animals convert food into tissue and metabolism very efficiently. Even with this rough estimate, we are still off by an order of magnitude: 84 MJ versus 979 MJ.
- Jed
