10
Gasoline in My BigMacs
2,229 viewsAs I was pedaling my bicycle to classes one day, and as SUV’s and pickup trucks, each with their single occupant roared by me, I quietly reveled in the joy obtained by imagining how many gallons of gas I WASN’T burning and how many baby seals, honey bees, and whooping cranes I was saving. It was then I realized something shocking; I had NO idea I was saving of anything! So I resolved to apply all my science into this issue to come up with the best way to commute to class.
First, I made an Excel spreadsheet of all my candidate transportations.
| Type | Miles Per Hour |
|---|---|
| F15 Jet | 1875 |
| Car | 60 |
| Hybrid | 60 |
| Motorcycle | 60 |
| Bicycle | 10 |
| Walking | 4 |
| Jogging | 6 |
Then, I needed to know the energy required in calories per hour. Assuming that a gallon of gas or jetfuel contains 28900 calories, I made the following calculations:
The F15 burns about 25 gallons a minute at a top speed of 1875 mph (very rough estimate). This translates to 1500 gallons per hour which we multiply by calories per gallon to find that I will be burning 43350000 calories an hour in my personal F15.
Perhaps a car is more practical. Assuming my car uses one gallon per 30 miles, it will burn 2 gallons an hour at 60mph. So 2 * 28900 = 57800 calories.
Similarly, my fancy hybrid (50mpg) uses 34680 and my motorcycle (60mpg) gets 28900.
Using a exercising chart, I find that bicycling at 10mph will burn 400 cal/hr with walking and jogging burning 250, and about 584 for a 160lb individual respectively.
So now my chart looks like this:
| Type | Miles Per Hour | Cal/hr |
|---|---|---|
| F15 Jet | 1875 | 43350000 |
| Car | 60 | 57800 |
| Hybrid | 60 | 34680 |
| Motorcycle | 60 | 28900 |
| Bicycle | 10 | 400 |
| Walking | 4 | 250 |
| Jogging | 6 | 584 |
Victory! I now see that by bicycling, I am using 108375 times less energy per hour than if I had been lazy and used my fighter jet instead. Very nice, but I do manage to go a lot further in my jet in one hour (at that burn rate, I also run out of fuel well before an hour as well). So, I need another column. This one will show calories per mile, and its easy enough to calculate. I simply divide Calories per hour over miles per hour. Here are my results:
| Type | Miles Per Hour | Cal/hr | Calories per mile |
|---|---|---|---|
| F15 Jet | 1875 | 43350000 | 23120 |
| Car | 60 | 57800 | 963.33 |
| Hybrid | 60 | 34680 | 578 |
| Motorcycle | 60 | 28900 | 481.667 |
| Bicycle | 10 | 400 | 40 |
| Walking | 4 | 250 | 62.5 |
| Jogging | 6 | 584 | 97.33 |
And now I finally see, I am using about 24 times less energy to ride my bike to school as I would be riding a car. What a GREAT savings! Right?
Well, as it turns out, no.
See, if we add one more column to this table called “dollars per calorie” and we use a BigMac as our main food supply ($2.5 dollars for 540 calories) we find that, while it costs us 46 cents for 100 calories worth of BigMacs, it only costs us 1.03 cents per 100 calories of gas! As it turns out, (if you only eat BigMacs), you actually end up paying more for riding your bicycle! A quick check on the “internet” found a lot of other people with the same idea coming to the same conclusion. So I could’ve saved my time and just reported their data. But I had already done my calculations so here it is:
So by bicycling, I’m spending about twice what I might driving my car! Its still much cheaper than the jet though.
What does all this mean? Fortunately, its still usually cheaper to ride my bicycle since (1) I don’t eat BigMacs, and (2) I eat more calories than I need anyways. Is it more environmentally friendly, though? The answer for is: for most people, yes, but it depends on what we eat. Foods that are heavily processed or consist largely of farmed meat have a lot of hidden costs. Beef is fed grain, which uses diesel tractors, planters and petroleum based chemicals to grow. We also eat far more meat (and food, obviously) than our body really needs so a little exercise might not be the worst thing ever (bicycling is still cheaper than a gym membership which can’t transport you anywhere).
This has some very interesting facts: http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/beef.html
This has some good data on bicycling efficiencies: http://users.frii.com/katana/biketext.html
Calories per Mile with the Fighter Jet
Calories per Mile without the Fighter Jet
I’ve really been enjoying your posts. Your writing style is excellent. The
combination of humor and education is just right. Keep up the good work!
Thanks a bunch Jason!
Hi cousin, good to see another in the family that recognizes the wisdom of riding bicycles!
Hope you’re doing well. Noel says hi.
I would like to consider that the value of fun and most pleasue far outways that of money. If the F-15 would be the most fun, and who would argue with that, the F-15 would be the most benefical to your life as a whole.
Hey Noel, I’m doing well, I have a lot more free time this sems to do stuff like this. Also, yes. bikes are nice.
I must agree with you there. However, they’re also hard to park.
Addressing the parking issue, perhaps you should invest in a harrier, or if you want to get the newest and shiniest, the marine’s variant of the JSF. Thats a lot of calories burned just hovering (zero miles traveled).
I wonder how much oil you could get out of a big mac?
You could always get a tofu burger. Go vegan. It’s the best way to be environmentally friendly.
Мне понравился, не плохой блог.