Friday, May 16, 2008

Food consumption

8 comments:

pimp-a-lot bear said...

1674! thats 1674/365 = 4,5 pounds per person per day!

No wonder Americans are fat!

Probably biofuel related consumption.
Did you know that An acre of U.S. corn yields about 7,110 pounds of corn for processing into 328 gallons of ethanol?
That means you need 3.9 kg in order to get 1,5 liter of biofuel, which is equivalent to 1 liter of gasoline.

That 1 liter of gasoline will get you (depending on the efficiency of your car) about 20 km.

so you need 4 kg of corn in order to drive 20 km!

annom said...

I think it's mostly animal food.

Source is btw NYtimes.

How far can you drive a car with a steam engine and burning 4kg of corn? :)

pimp-a-lot bear said...

in my calculation I forgot the energy needed to process the corn.

you need 70% extra energy, resulting in an extra 3 kg to produce my 1,5 liter in order to drive 20 km.
Total: 7kg

if you burn 1 kg of corn (15%moist) you'll get a lower heating value of 13000 kJ/kg.

throwing in a 30% Rankine cycle thermodynamic efficiency and the 7 kg's of corn you'll get 30 MJ.

using a 3686 J/m transport energy efficiency you'll get 8 km.

pimp-a-lot bear said...

correction:
that 3686 J/m is for an average car.

that 3686 includes a combustion engine efficiency which is not used in a rankine cycle.
If you get the 40% eff out. you'll get the same 20 km.

cybrbeast said...

Interesting discussion. I think the chart is confusingly labeled food consumption suggesting it's all eaten. But as you point out it also goes to fuel and animal feed. And don't forget alcohol and corn sugar!

Kamiel said...

interesting stats!
I tried to find on the Internet what the percentage are of the kind of consumption(food, seed, industrial uses, feed, and waste)

for example i think that the united states and Europe are the top in wasting food. despite of the better conserve methods we got.

annom said...

Yes, the chart title is misleading, but is somewhat explained in the notes.

I also want a break-down... what the fuck do they do with the corn?

pimp-a-lot bear said...

to put the 7 kgs of corn in perspective:

100g yields 337 kcal.

70*337=23600 kcal

In Eritrea the average caloric consumption is 1520 kcal per day.

If you would feed the 7kg of corn to starving marvin, you'd feed him for 15 days.