Fuel to burn

Chicago columnist Cecil Adams, responding to a question from a reader, did some calculations last week that are instructive. Using figures from the Centers for Disease Control indicating that U.S. adults are “hauling around at least 4.6 billion extra pounds of fat,” Adams calculated the energy potential of all that blubber if it could be “harvested in a caring and noninvasive manner.”

Adams found that the energy contained therein would be the equivalent of 700,000 barrels of crude oil or 35 million gallons of gasoline or nearly 15 freight trains loaded with coal. More than 83 billion large orders of McDonald’s fries could be deep fried in it. So could 25 million turkeys. It could have powered all 135 space shuttle launches with energy left over.

But here’s the most revealing part: U.S. energy consumption is such that all that fat would only keep the nation going for … 53 minutes.