422 years of fossil sunlight
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The Weather Makers, Tim Flannery:
“Jeffrey Dukes, of the University of Utah, has proferred an equation as to how humans are supplying that demand [for fossil fuel]. He starts with the observation that all the carbon and hydrogen in fossil fuels was gathered through the power of sunlight, captured by long-ago plants. By calculating the efficiency by which plant matter is preserved in sediment, the efficiency with which it is converted into fossil fuels, and the efficiency with which we are able to retrieve that fuel, Dukes has concluded that approximately 100 tons of ancient plant life is required to create one gallon of gasoline.
Given the vast amount of sunlight needed to grow 100 tons of plant matter, and the prodigious rate at which we’re using gasoline, coal, and gas, it should come as no surprise that over each year of our industrial age, humans have required several centuries’ worth of ancient sunlight to keep the economy going. The figure for 1997, around 422 years of fossil sunlight, was typical. 422 years worth of blazing light from a carboniferous sun and we’ve burned it in a single year!
Reading Dukes’ analysis has changed the way I look at the world. Now, as I tread the sandstone pavements around Sydney, I feel the power of long-spent sunbeams in my bare feet.
…I instantly know in the most visceral manner what Dukes is saying about fossil sunlight. The past is a truly capacious land whose stored riches are fabulous when compared with the meager daily ration of solar radiation we receive.
It makes me realize too that the power and seduction of fossil fuels will be hard to leave behind.” (excerpt from audio book so some spelling and punctuation will be off)
100 tons of plant life for one gallon of gas and 422 years for every year of consumption. Those are not only motivational stats when it comes to alternative energy, but also give a sense of the vast scale of evolutionary time.
2 Responses
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Carl,
Thinking about this gives new meaning to the traditional “boom-bust” cycle. Finding one gallon of gas is an absolute explosion of energy compared to that which a plant can collect in one year.
Another reason why this passage stood out for me. The author feels the ancient sunlight and what it means as opposed to just knowing these stats in his head as information. I tend to know things as strictly information so for me this is an example of a fuller way of knowing.