news of the day

This came thru my news today... thought you might want to read it. The
again, you probably all know this already....

Donna


Good Mileage 98 Tons of Plants Per Gallon

SALT LAKE CITY (UPI) -- A New University of Utah study shows 98 tons of
prehistoric, buried plant material is needed to produce just one gallon
of gasoline to power our vehicles. Researcher Jeff Dukes asked, "Can you
imagine loading 40 acres worth of wheat -- stalks, roots and all -- into
the tank of your car or SUV every 20 miles?" But he says that's how much
ancient plant matter had to be buried millions of years ago and
converted by pressure, heat and time into oil to produce one gallon of
gasoline today.

He also calculated the amount of fossil fuel burned during just 1997
totaled 97 million billion pounds of carbon -- the equivalent of more
than 400 times all the plant matter that grows in the world during just
one year. Asked why he conducted the study, Dukes said "Fossil fuel
consumption is widely recognized as unsustainable. However, there has
been no attempt to calculate the amount of energy that was required to
generate fossil fuels." The study is to be published in the November
issue of the journal Climatic Change.

Copyright 2003 by United Press International. All rights reserved

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