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 (IDE's) on planet Earth is roughly the equivalent of 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 billion humans on Earth --- 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 --- which burn 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 horse --- all day, every day --- without the horse-poop. In other words, a 'super horse'.) 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:
Here is a link to a page on this site which provides a calculation of the approximately 8 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' generated by the burning of Petroleum LIQUIDS, all over planet Earth. Here is a link to a page on this site which provides a calculation of the approximately 6 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' generated by the burning of Natural GAS, all over planet Earth. Here is a link to a page on this site which provides a calculation of the approximately 10 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' generated by the burning of COAL, all over planet Earth.
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 Petroleum LIQUIDS (that is, OIL distillates, such as gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel) (on the order of terawatts --- that is, trillions of watts) to 'Room Space Heater Equivalents' --- where the typical room-space-heater is rated at about 1500 watts (1.5 kilowatts). We can provide a more precise definition of 'hot super horse equivalent' than the rather-vague 'hard-working-horse' description above. A 'hot super 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 super 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 an adult horse weighs about 380 to 550 kilograms (840 to 1,210 lb) --- roughly as much as 6 humans. You can expect a horse to be as powerful as about 6 athletic humans. HOWEVER, it still may be difficult to 'grasp' the heat generated by a 'super horse'. So this page is meant to put the heat geneated by the Petro-LIQUIDS USAGE on Earth into an alternate unit of measure --- namely, 'room-space-heater-equivalents' --- instead of 'super-horse-equivalents'. Note that power is a measure of the amount of energy created or expended per unit of time. Also note that 'watts' are a unit-of-measure of power. And 'kilowatt-hours' are a unit-of-measure of energy --- typically used by electric utility companies. Power-units (watts) multiplied by time-units (hours) gives energy-units (watt-hours). THE CALCULATION : There are several ways that the annual world-wide consumption of Petroleum-LIQUIDS could be converted to 'room-space-heater-equivalents' --- using various units of measure and various conversion factors. First of all, we note that the typical POWER rating of a room space heater is about 1500 watts (1.5 kilowatts). You can do a WEB SEARCH on keywords such as 'space heater power rating' to see that 1500 watts is typical. If we could get good world consumption figures for the various liquids (including gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, heating oil), we could do a conversion for each of those liquids. I have not found good figures for diesel fuel, so, for now, let us use the annual world-wide consumption of OIL --- and make an adjustment for non-fuel uses of oil. Then we could use the annual world-wide consumption of OIL --- in BARRELS PER DAY, say. We could convert those BARRELS into ENERGY units (kilowatt-hours). We could divide those kilowatt-hours by the number of hours in a day to get the POWER (rate of energy consumption & generation) in the oil being used world-wide at any moment in recent time. Then dividing that figure by 1500 watts (the max-power rating of the typical space heater) would give us the world's oil heat-generation rate in 'room-space-heater-equivalents'. Here are details of calculation steps using that method:
Admittedly, not all the world's oil is distilled into 'petro-liquids-to-be-burned' such as gasoline and diesel fuel and jet fuel. In fact, if the 'Non-energy use' of the following pie charts is presumed to represent oil that is not burned (such as oil used for lubrication purposes), then we should probably adjust our 4.04 billion 'room-space-heater-equivalents' figure down by about 17 percent. That would give .83 x 4.04 = 3.35 BILLION 'room-space-heater-equivalents' in the burning of oil products (distillates).
Note that these pie charts indicate that most oil-burning is done by 'Road' --- presumably vehicles such as cars and trucks --- and perhaps some by road-building (energy used to melt asphalt). Much less oil-burning is done by airplanes ('Aviation') and ships ('Navigation') and trains ('Rail'). And the oil-burning done by homes ('Residential') and 'Industry' is also significantly less than 'Road'. The bottom-line : Due to annual world-wide consumption of OIL-distillates, humans have added the equivalent of about 8 BILLION heat-generating, 24-hours-a-day, non-tiring, hard-working 'super horses' to the planet --- about 133 times more than the 60 million actual horses in the world (which are NOT working 24/7). OR --- viewed in different (non-horse) units-of-measure --- due to annual world-wide consumption of OIL-distillates, humans have added the equivalent of about 3.35 BILLION room-space-heaters --- running 'full-blast' 24-hours-a-day --- to the planet.
NOTE: So a 'hot super horse' is roughly equal to half a 'room-space-heater'. This 8 billion 'oil-distillates-horses' --- or 3.35 billion room-space-heaters --- is in addition to the 7 billion-plus humans --- with their NATURAL-GAS-burning furnaces-ovens-kilns-etc which add another 6 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' to planet Earth --- and their devices burning COAL, all over planet Earth, which add another 10 BILLION 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' to planet Earth. These pages have shown that there are approximately 8 + 6 + 10 = 24 billion 'hot-super-horse-equivalents' of heat generation on planet Earth each day OR roughly 12 billion 'room-space-heaters' of heat generation on planet Earth each day due to the burning of OIL-distillates and NATURAL GAS and COAL --- about 400 times more 'hot-horse-equivalents' than the 60 million actual horses in the world --- none of whom are working as hard-and-long as the 'hot-super-horse-equivalents'. Here is a condensation of what was mentioned at the bottom of the home page of this site --- using our world natural-gas-AND-coal-AND-petro-liquids consumption figures, in 'super-horse' units: In the 1600's, the "Father of Microbiology" Antonie van Leeuwenhoek predicted that the Earth could support no more than 13.4 billion people, due to the land-area limitation. BUT ... Leeuwenhoek had not counted on
In other words, humans are facing not only a land-limitation threat to a high-quality existence, but also a heat-generation threat to a high-quality existence. At this time (around the year 2020): About 7.5 billion humans are responsible for about 24 BILLION 'hot-horse-equivalents' of heat generation every day on planet Earth --- due to burning of the fossil fuels --- coal AND natural-gas AND oil-distillates --- or about 12 BILLION 'room-space-heaters' of heat generation every day on planet Earth. Another way of looking at this: Each human has, on average, about 24-billion / 7.5-billion = 3.2 hot-super-horse-equivalents working for them --- 24 hours a day --- every day. OR Each human has, on average, about 12-billion / 7.5-billion = 1.6 room-space-heaters working for them --- 24 hours a day --- every day. And if we use the observation above (that the power of a horse is approximately equal to the power of 6 humans), then each human has, on average, about 3.2 x 6 = 19.2 'strenuously-working, tireless, heat-generating human equivalents' working for them --- 24 hours a day --- every day. So, in addition to the 7.5 billion humans on Earth (most of whom are NOT strenuously working), there are 7.5 billion x 19.2 = 144 billion 'hot human equivalents' constantly generating heat on planet Earth. By that measure, humans have far-exceeded the Earth-human-population-limit of 13.4 billion humans, predicted by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek. (Each of these 'hot human equivalents' is generating heat equivalent to lifting 550 / 6 = 91.7 pounds one foot in one second --- every second of every day.) 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 OIL heat-generation and atmospheric heating, here are some web searches to try (and to modify).
You could try changing some of these 'keywords' to look for information of interest to you. |
The coal-AND-oil-distillates-AND-natural-gas being burned
every day on planet Earth is the equivalent of the heat generation
from about 24 BILLION of these horses working hard, 24 hours per day.
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Wind turbines have some bad points --- BUT
they DO NOT ADD HUGE AMOUNTS OF HEAT to all
those N2 and O2 molecules in our very thin atmosphere.
Besides, whenever an energy company (or a
politician) wants to put a pretty energy picture
on their public-facing documents, they use a
picture of glistening white wind turbines.
Sometime, try a WEB SEARCH on keywords
such as
oil spills list map.
Oil spills are much, much more common than you would think.
Too many CEO's and politicians want to
keep doing things the 'old way' ---
partly because it takes so much work to
learn to deal with the new ways.
(Hey, Big-Oil-Politicians. Engineers & scientists
are working everyday, world-wide, on the optimization
of renewables. Take your oil-PAC-money, retire, and
go relax someplace. As they say: If you are not leading,
get out of the way.)
There is too much politics holding back
research & development in renewables.
For example, Iowa Congress-people are not
going to want to help development of non-ethanol
bio-fuels such as algae fuel-liquids development.
Meanwhile, China will use their type of
government to jump right into the necessary
research & development.
Secretary of the Interior
Ryan Zinke wanted to drill
in National Parks, circa 2018.
Not an issue if we migrate to renewables.
Continued oil drilling (& burning) is
putting us in an atmospheric heating hole
out of which it will be hard to find a way.
Sometime, try a WEB SEARCH on keywords
such as
oil industry subsidies.
Gasoline prices have retreated from the
4 to 5 dollar/gallon level of around 2005.
Admittedly, gasoline is a bargain around 2020,
BUT wait until the 2030 to 2040 time frame when
the world population finds it is outgrowing the supply.
World oil consumption is increasing at about
95-million-bbl/day / 70-million-bbl/day
==> 26 percent every 20 years.
This graph was used above --- to get a world
oil usage rate of about 100 million barrels per day.
'Developing Nations' (including China & India?)
are expected to accelerate oil usage.
(See next image, barchart.)
China's domestic oil production was out-stripped
by her consumption around 1993.
Brazil's domestic oil production has been
out-stripped by her consumption since the 1960's.
A diagram of an oil-or-gas-fired electric-power plant.
(There can be far fewer moving parts, and far less air heating,
with solar --- and coming battery/energy-storage technology.)
Nuclear power is NOT 'clean energy' --- nowhere close.
This list seems to be in the reverse order
of actual implementation.
Supplement -- then largely replace.
