The average human gets 400 mpg

June 20th, 2007 by Mollie
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David Archer was walking one day when he was struck by the thought that he was sure the human body was more fuel efficient than a Prius.  Turns out he was right…

A gallon of gas contains roughly 132 megajoules of energy, 31,548,757 calories, and 31,548 kilocalories, or food calories, or calories, in common parlance (one food/kilocalorie, remember, actually contains 1,000 calories).
A 155 lb human walking at 3 mph will burn 246 kcal/hour, or 82 kcal/mile. Feed that human one gallon of gas in potential energy–31,548 kcal–and he’ll have enough energy to walk for 128 hours. At 3 mph, he’ll cover 384 miles; in other words, he’ll get 384 mpg at that weight and speed.*

via  Kottke.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 11:40 am and is filed under Environment, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Nah. Its more of me trying to vindicate my Biology degree, which I haven't used since graduation in 2000.
  • Mollie
    Marshall,

    You are too smart for me! :)

    -Mollie
  • Not nearly as efficient as me on a bike though
  • Julie
    He is going to need some serious cookies to make that walk!
  • Wonderful calculation! But, we must understand that it is impossible for a human to consume 31.5 Million calories.

    The max, I've observed, a human can consume in a day (as seen on TLC) is around 30,000 calories, which equates to a bedridden-non mobile-morbidly obese person.

    I think another approach is to assume how many mpg one would get with a typical daily 2,600 cal intake, or lets up it to 30,000 cal (assuming we could still walk at 3 mpg).

    So while walking at 3 mph and burning 246 kcal/hour or 82 kcal/mile one could walk for 0.121 hours and at 3 mpg he will get 0.365 miles, three tenths of a mile.

    Doesn't make much sense, but we are also assuming our body isn't getting calories from other fuel sources like fat reserve and muscle.
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