A Simple Calculation
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INTRODUCTION : Near the bottom of the home page of this site, there is a simple calculation that shows that the heat-generating 'potential' of the 2-Billion-plus gasoline-and-diesel-burning internal combustion engines on planet Earth is likely to be the equivalent of heat from about 2 Billion times 300 horses = 600 billion horses. So, in the past 120 years or so (about 1900 to 2020), humans have effectively added about HALF A TRILLION potentially-heat-generating horses to planet Earth --- almost 100 times more 'horse-equivalents' than the 7-plus billion humans on Earth (100 horses for every human) --- and about 10,000 times more than the 60 million actual horses in the world. (Luckily, nowhere near all of those 'horse-equivalents' are working 24 hours a day, every day.) That bottom section of the home page also points out that --- in addition to internal combustion engines --- burning LIQUID petroleum fuels --- generating enormous amounts of heat into the atmosphere . . . there are millions of industrial and residential NATURAL-GAS ovens, kilns, furnaces, heaters, smelters, foundries, gas turbines for electricity generation, etc. --- running 24/7 --- or 3/7 --- or 16/5 --- or thereabout. Those millions of furnaces-ovens-kilns-etc are generating (every day) billions of 'hot horse equivalents' of heat by the consumption of the world's NATURAL GAS. (By 'hot-horse-equivalent' is meant the heat generated by a hard-working, untiring 'super horse' --- working all day, every day --- without the horse-poop.) Besides LIQUID-petroleum fuels and Natural GAS, there is a third major category of HEAT-GENERATION --- from SOLID fossil fuel (coal). Fossil fuels can be categorized into THREE major types:
This page will concentrate on NATURAL GAS.
The intent of this page is to provide a simple arithmetic calculation (using only multiplication and division of a few quantities) to convert the world consumption of NATURAL GAS (in cubic feet per year, say) to horsepower --- or what could be called 'hot super-horse equivalents'. We can provide a more precise definition of 'hot horse equivalent' than the rather-vague 'hard working horse --- all day' description above. A 'hot horse equivalent' is the heat energy being generated constantly at the same energy generation rate as a horse lifting 550 pounds one foot in each second, every second of every day. This is based on the definition of a unit of 'horsepower'. In other words, a 'hot horse equivalent' is the constant heat generation from a hard-working 'super horse' that never gets tired and works 24 hours a day, day after day --- lifting a 550 pound weight at a rate of one foot each second. Note that power is a measure of the amount of energy created or expended per unit of time. Also note that a 'foot-pound' is a unit-of-measure of energy --- a pound of force acting through a distance of one foot. Then one unit of horsepower is 550 of those 'foot-pounds' of energy being expended (or used) in one second. Note that an adult horse weighs about 380 to 550 kilograms (840 to 1,210 pounds) --- roughly as much as 6 humans. You can expect a horse to be as powerful as about 6 athletic humans. Then, to equal the power-output of a horse, each of those humans could be expected to lift about 550 / 6 = 91.6 pounds per second. That is a heavy load to lift that fast --- especially if you were expected to do that all day, every day, day after day. This may give you an idea of the energy expenditure of one 'hot super horse'. It is roughly the equivalent of 6 humans, each of which is continuously raising 91.6 pounds (almost 100 pounds) every second of every minute of every day. That is an impossible task --- so we are talking about 6 'super-humans'. Note that mechanical energy of moving objects is eventually converted into heat energy (vibration of molecules --- in various objects, such as air-water-earth) as the moving objects (cars, turbines, tools, etc) finally return to rest.
A car gives off heat energy from the engine and exhaust system when it comes to rest. And the car was transferring heat energy into the air passing through its radiator when the car was running. And the car was 'bashing into' air molecules when it was running, transferring much of its mechanical energy into heat energy in the air (increased velocity of N2 and O2 molecules). Also much of its mechanical energy was transferred into friction (heat energy) as gears and tires and brake-pads rotated against adjacent surfaces. THE CALCULATION : There are several ways that the annual world-wide consumption of NATURAL GAS could be converted to 'horse-equivalents' (horsepower) --- using various units of measure and various conversion factors. Here is an outline of one such method:
A units-of-measure check:
cubic-feet / hour times horsepower-hours / cubic-foot
The bottom-line : Due to annual world-wide consumption of natural gas, humans have added the equivalent of about 6 BILLION heat-generating, 24-hours-a-day, non-tiring, hard-working super-horses to the planet --- about 100 times more horses than the 60 million actual horses in the world (which are NOT 'super-horses' working 24/7). This 6 billion 'natural-gas-horses' of power is being used/generated by about 7.5 billion humans --- in addition to their 2-billion-plus internal combustion engines (ICE's) (and other oil burning devices) that burn LIQUID petroleum fuels --- and in addition to all their COAL burning in the world, that is going on 24/7. Here is a link to a page showing that there are about 10 billion 'hot-untiring-horse-equivalents' in the COAL being burned world-wide. In addition, here is a link to a page showing that there are about 8 billion 'hot-untiring-horse-equivalents' in the OIL-distillates being burned world-wide. So --- adding up the 'horse-equivalents' from Natural-Gas and Coal and Oil-Distillates --- about 7.5 billion humans are responsible for at least 6 + 10 + 8 = 24 BILLION hot-super-horse-equivalents of heat generation every day on planet Earth. This is about 400 times more horse-equivalents than the 60 million actual horses in the world (which are not 'super-horses' working all day, every day). Another way of looking at this: Each human has, on average, about 24-billion-super-horses / 7.5-billion-humans = 3.2 super-horse-equivalents working for them --- 24 hours a day --- every day. This has implications to the issue of over-population of the Earth --- not just land-limits, but also heat-limits. See the discussion of the "Father of Microbiology" Antonie van Leeuwenhoek at the bottom of the home page of this site. CONCLUSION: Humans have some work to do, if they want to stop over-heating their world and avoid wiping themselves out. Note that the neutralizing effect of glaciers-and-snow-and-ice is fast disappearing. When they are gone, the Earth temperatures will REALLY start rising fast. For further facts on NATURAL GAS heat-generation and atmospheric heating, here are some web searches to try (and to modify).
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Besides humans burning natural gas --- there are
craters of burning natural gas in various areas of
the world --- such as Russia and this crater in Turkmenistan.
