20101220

Soylent Gas is People

This being from a drunken conversation last night, about renewable energy.


There are 300 million people in America, 10% of these people have been designated as America's Greatest Renewal Resource (TM), and their patriotic duty is to be rendered into biodiesel to fuel our tanks, SUVs, and snow machines.

For parsimony, assume the average American weights 100 kg. This gives us 3*10^9 kg of raw material. Most of this is water, bone, other things that do not react, so assume 20% total reaction efficiency, we wind up with 6*10^8 kg of biodiesel.

This sounds like a lot, but in fact, it's only 7*10^8 liters of fuel, or 3.4*10^6 barrels of biodiesel. Less than one gulf oil spill. A mere drop in ocean.

Well, back to the drawing board.


4 comments:

  1. You forget- we may not have much energy at one time, but we have a better efficiency than a car engine. Just steal energy from living people.

    Also, I have heard humans taste like pork? Can anyone confirm this?

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  2. but you neglect the fact that a smaller population requires less fuel consumption, clearly there is an equilibrium point !

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  3. "clearly there is an equilibrium point"- Brilliant

    Since the population is going to be so much smaller, do you think that we will need slaughterhouses- cause I'm all for going Morlock on the Eloi.

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  4. oh god. technological-biological cannibalism. what about those dead from natural causes ?

    "it is every citizen's final duty to go into the tanks"
    "the flesh of a man is his own, but his water belongs to the tribe"

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