Stories tagged efficiency

Trains are efficient
Courtesy Sean Lamb When it comes to moving tons of freight, freight trains are very efficient (barges or ships might be even better). Someone asked FactCheck.org

"Can a freight train really move a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel?" (click link to read)

The facts

Seven major railroad companies reported the following for 2007:

• 1,770,545,245,000 ton-miles of freight were moved
• 4,062,025,082 gallons of diesel fuel were consumed
• That works out to be almost 436 ton-miles per gallon (435.88)

Trains today 85% more efficient than in 1980

The Association of American Railroads is boasting an 85.5 percent improvement in fuel efficiency for their trains since 1980.

“In fact, if just 10 percent of the freight currently moving by truck went instead by rail, the nation could save one billion gallons of fuel per year."

This information probably sounds like an advertisement for the railroad industry. I did use the Association of American Railroads website as a source.

Tags : transportation, trains, Association of American Railroads, mpg, efficiency, fuel, gas, energy

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My Geo Metro: 47 miles per gallon
Courtesy Art OglesbyGuess the answer to this word problem before doing the math.

• Car A (a compact) gets 34 mpg
• Car B (a hybrid) gets 54 mpg
• Car C (an S.U.V.) gets 18 mpg
• Car D (a sedan) gets 28 mpg

Which would save more gasoline?

• (a)replacing Car A with Car B
• (b)replacing Car C with Car D
• (c)both would save the same

Can you do the math?

I drive my car about 10,000 miles each year. One way to look at this problem would be to calculate how many gallons of gas each of the four cars would use to go 10,000 miles. Can you do the math? If gas costs $4 per gallon what is the cost for each car to go the 10,000 miles?

Show me your answers in the comments

I will do the math for my Geo Metro as an example. It now has over 100,000 miles on it. Until recently it got 50 miles per gallon. Two gallons would take me 100 miles, 20 gallons would take 1000 miles. 100,000 miles would take 2000 gallons. With $4 gas that 2000 gallons would cost $8000.

Save the world's gas

I once owned a Ford pickup truck. If it got 20 mpg and if I drove it 100,000 miles I would need 5000 gallons which would cost me $20,000. By replacing my pickup with the Metro I use less than half the gas and save over $1000 a year. I used to commute to work and put on 30,000 miles per year. That figures out to a $36,000 saving over 10 years.

Tags : mpg, miles per gallon, math, Geo Metro, efficiency

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A British design firm, Sheppard Robson, has unveiled a plan for a new house that produces zero emissions, making it carbon neutral. Their home is the first design to meet the highest level of energy efficiency set by the UK government for some new laws that go into effect in 2016.

The Science Museum of Minnesota has its own Zero Emissions Building right here by the Mississippi River, Science House. Next time your in our Big Backyard, make sure the check it out.

Tags : energy, carbon, efficiency, ZEB, housing

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Is that a contradiction in terms?

Approximately 330 million tons of garbage filled landfills in the United States last year alone, according to Solid Waste Digest, a trade publication for the waste industry. However, remarkably, the capacity of these landfills has been increasing even though very few new dumps are being built. How is this possible?

It turns out that landfill managers have been using methods that allow them to pack more trash into a landfill then what was previously thought possible. Some landfills pile tons of dirt on top of sections of their dumps and then six months later scrape the dirt aside. Like stomping your foot into the waste bin to make more room, this system works to create 30 to 40 more feet of depth — more space for more trash.

Other methods to increase landfill capacity include blowing water and air into the dumps to quicken decomposition and therefore reducing the size of buried garbage. Or, they are using other methods, such as giant 59-ton compacting machines, to bury trash more tightly.

The good news here is that this efficiency will help to reduce the need for new landfills. The bad news is, again, the United States produces 330 million tons of garbage a year! New York City produces so much garbage that it exports 25,000 tons of trash every day to other states and other cities.

So, while I think this new efficiency is great, I also think that we (you and I) still play a significant role in reducing the amount of trash put into landfills. Reduce, reuse, recycle!

Tags : trash, dumps, waste, landfill, efficiency

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