Diamonds! Sparkling, Beautiful and Bloody
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They are every bride’s dream and are so sought after people are willing to pay absorbent amounts for very small qualities. Poets and bards have glamorized these tiny powerhouses in word and song throughout history. No, they are not celebrities, although they have been in movies, and they are not rock stars even though they are rocks. Marilyn Monroe said it best in her movie Gentlemen Prefer Blondes with the famous song Diamonds are A Girls Best Friend.
Over $8 billion of Diamonds are mined every year. Approximately 250 tons of ore must be mined and processed to produce a single one-carat, polished, gem quality diamond. 100 million carats are mined each year, but only a quarter of these will be considered gem quality. That is one reason diamonds are so rare and expensive.
Diamonds are not all glamour and glitter. Diamonds are used for certain industrial applications and in some areas of the world children and adults under extreme conditions mine Diamonds. These are called Conflict Diamonds or Blood Diamonds.
Diamonds are found all over the world, but 80% of all diamonds come from just seven sources: Angola, Australia, Botswana, Namibia, Russia, South Africa and Zaire. Most Blood Diamonds come from Western Africa and other worn torn areas. Blood Diamonds may be forever but the lives lost mining them are not.
Most modern mines operate under strict environmental standards, but not all. In conflict areas and in some old mines these standards are not in place.
I was wondering how much ore has to be processed to generate one year’s supply of diamond gemstones. We know that it takes about 250 tons of or to get one carats gem stone quality Diamond. And, of the 100 million carats mined each year 25 million carets are gem quality. So if we times 25 million carats times 250 million tones we get 6.25 Quadrillion tons of ore. This can’t be correct, but that’s what I get from the figures I found.
Just as a frame of reference, the Hoover Dam is 6.6 million tons. Therefore, it would take about 905 Million Hoover Dams to equally the ore removed to find 25 Million Carats of Diamonds.
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Crappy Catalogs
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Figures I have seen indicate that approximately 20 billion catalogs are printed and distributed in the U.S. every year. That’s about 60 catalogs for each person in the U.S. If my own mail is any indication, I would say that is accurate.
It would be funny if it didn’t affect the environment so much. Computers and the Internet were supposed to take us into a paperless society, but it seems we use more paper than ever. When you consider that online sales in the U.S. were $4.5 billion in 2007, you wonder why we need so many catalogs. I am not sure we need them all but I know why they are printed. This statement by a marketing research company says it all.
Marketing Vox
“The paper catalog is still the largest revenue generator — some 50 percent of sales in both 2007 and 2008 — among all channels used by companies that sell goods to consumers and businesses from a remote location, though web sales continue to grow, a new study finds.”
I think it is safe to say that most of the catalogs printed are pretty much tossed before they are read. You would think the catalog-marketing folks would find it more cost effective to be more discerning with their distributions. Perhaps we need an opt-in list as we do with email, or maybe there is a better idea for the use for all those catalogs.
What if we had the catalog people print catalogs on a soft paper using soy ink. That way we could recycle the paper by using it as toilet paper. They did that a hundred years ago using the regular paper, but hey were hardier people. They also used corncobs. Yeiks!
I think I am on to something here. J If all catalogs (except Victoria Secrets catalogs that must be preserved) were printed on toilet paper and used for that purpose we could save on land fill, the cost of toilet paper (value added for Sears and other catalog providers) and about 11 tons of CO2 emissions per year used to create the paper for the catalogs.
This could revolutionize the catalog business. Instead of people complaining about receiving so many catalogs they will be happy to receive them and it will give people something to read while doing their “business”. Alternatively, we could just start using the Internet to order online, or actually go to a store and experience the fun of shopping and get some exercise at the same time.
I am told that 3.6 million tons of paper is used to print the 20 billion catalogs distributed in the U.S. That’s 15 Million trees. So, what does 3.6 million of paper look like anyway? Let’s use the Sears Tower as a comparison. After all Sears started the catalog biz so it is only fair we use them.
The Sears Tower is 1,454' tall and was the largest building in the world for 22 years. It weighs 222,500 tons. So, it would take over 16 Sears Towers to equal the paper we would save by not printing catalogs. |
2008 Year of the Potato
What could be better than a vegetable that is low in fat, high in vitamins and minerals and tastes great? Well how about a vegetable you can fry in high calorie oil and make them crunchy or you can add mayonnaise, cheese or sour cream taking you into cholesterol nirvana. The potato works in both cases.
I just found out that 2008 is the year of the potato, so I thought I would do some research to see how many potatoes the world consumes and which country is the biggest producer. So, here goes:
In 2007, the world produced 449 billion pounds of potatoes. China is the largest producer and consumer of potatoes. And you thought they only ate rice! Russia is second and India is third. The USA is down the line with about 38 billion pounds. That is a lot of French fries.
As you know, my quest is to make some sense out of the number of “things” we humans consume. Therefore, I must try to visualize what 449 Billion pounds of potato look like. At first, I thought I would use Mr. Potato Head. After all there is no better mascot them. According to Hasbro the maker of Mr. Potato Head “Mr. Potato Head, one of the world's most adored "personalities," was "born" in 1952, at the Pawtucket, RI-based toy company, “ And in fact, I did have a Mr. Potato Head when I was a kid. I decided that to use Mr. Potato Head because of my reverence for him.
So here goes. The heaviest person in the world was 1235 pounds and his name is Manuel Uribe. I say was because two years ago he went on a diet (probably gave up potatoes) and lost 600 pounds. I thought he would make a great example. Therefore, at his heaviest it would take approximately 36 million Manuel Uribes to equal the world production of potatoes for just one year. Keep in mind that the population of Canada is approximately 36 million.
Because of its high starch content, the potato is an important human energy source. This same starch can be converted to ethanol alcohol, a gasoline substitute that can be used as an alternative fuel. The Germans used the potato as a fuel source during World War II. Farmers in Canada have used potato fuels to power their farm equipment. Watch out Manuel!
What's Your Bag Man??
The best figures I can find stating the numbers of plastic bags produced every year is between 500 Billion and 1 trillion worldwide. The amount is so vast no one really knows the exact number.
According to Australia’s Department of Environment, Australians consume 6.9 billion plastic bags each year—326 per person. An estimated .7% or 49,600,000 end up as litter each year. Imagine over 49 million bags flying around the streets and outback. By the way, our own EPA says that over 380 billion plastic bags, sacks and wraps are consumed in the U.S. each year.
Here is the problem. Hundreds of thousands of sea turtles, whales and other marine mammals die every year from eating discarded plastic bags mistaken for food. If that wasn’t bad enough, plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photodegrade—breaking down into smaller and smaller toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food web when animals accidentally ingest. And we eat animals. Well some most of us do and any way veggies are grown in soil.
A cottage industry has sprung up in Africa, where enterprising people collect windblown plastic bags and weave hats and reusable bags from them. That is a step in the right direction for recycling brought on by necessity.
Okay, so now we have to try to figure out what a trillion plastic bags looks like. There are numerous size bags produced, but for our example we’ll use the type we get at a Grocery store. I weighed a typical bag and it was 1/2 ounce. The dimensions are 13 by 12 not counting the handles.
So, 1 trillion times 13 inches placed in a line is 280 million miles. One trillion bags times ½ ounce is 500 billion ounces or 16 million tons. If you are a plastic bag collector, and who isn’t, you probably tie them in a ball that is about 2 inches in diameter so you can store them better.
280 miles is 3 times the distance to the sun. 250 million pounds is 3 times the weight of the Great Pyramid of Khufu. Ummm, I have used these before. I need a new example.
Here’s one. The total square miles (rounded off) of 1 trillion plastic bags is around 36,000 square miles. That is equal to the size of the state of Indiana. Just imagine that each year we could cover the state of Indiana with plastic.
Okay there was a lot of figuring for this so I prove me wrong if you can.
Blood Letting
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About 4 million people in the USA need blood transfusions each year. 8 million people donate (out of the 37% of the population who are eligible to donate) about 12.6 million pints of blood per year in the USA. This blood is used for 4 million patients.
The rarest blood is AB Rh-negative. Only 1 percent of the population has this blood type. The most common O Rh-positive with 38 percent of the population having this type
12.6 million pints of blood is equal to 1.5 million gallons. Tanker trucks carry between 4000 to 9000 gallons of liquid depending on size. So, the average would be 6,250 gallons. That means it would take about 240 tanker trucks to deliver all the blood donated in the USA in one year.
I don’t think we will see tankers carrying blood though. They are much to busy carrying a more important liquid: gasoline.
Just incase you are interested, healthy adults who are at least 17 years old, and at least 110 pounds may donate about a pint of blood—the most common form of donation—every 56 days, or every two months. Females receive 53 percent of blood transfusions; males receive 47 percent. |
How Many Cars Operate in the World?
There are an estimated 600 Million passenger vehicles operating on the streets and roads of the world. If I calculated properly that is about one car per 1050 people. Of course, in some countries that number is smaller and n the United States alone, 247,421,120 "highway" registered vehicles were counted in 2005, of which 136,568,083 passenger cars. That would be one passenger car for every 2.2 people.
Unfortunately, most of these cars belch out a lot of pollution. The latest figures I saw claimed that one gas engine passenger car creates 575 pounds of carbon monoxide and 11,450 pounds of carbon dioxide every year. Light trucks create even more.
It is really hard to envision what 600 million autos look like. According to an article I read Toyota is the most popular car. I went to www.edmunds.com and determined the average size Toyota would be the Camry. The Camry size (rounded up) is about 6 feet wide by 16 feet long. Using this as an average, 600 million times 16 feet would be 1,846,153 miles. The Earth is 24,859.82 miles around at the equator. So the Camry line would wrap around the Earth 73 times. If we stack them on top of each other and wrap just once the line would be (Camry is 4.8 feet high) 350 feet high.
So imagine a line of cars wrapping the world the height of a 28-story building. That’s how many cars are operating in the world.
BLING BLING!!
According to the World Gold Council 2712 tons of gold was consumed by the world in 2006. That is 867,840,000 ounces. Gold is currently selling for $1,000 an ounce. Ahhhhh, that is a lot of money.
What does 2712 tons of gold look like? I have never seen even a couple pounds of gold so this should be interesting. Let’s see, a Boeing 747 ways about 200 tons empty. So, a fleet of about 14 747s would equal 2712 pounds of gold. Wow, gold is heavy and that doesn’t seem too startling to me. I wonder what else we can compare.
How about gold teeth? You know all that BLING! people are wearing in their month. I found out that approximately 1/10 ounce of gold is used to crown a single tooth. Now we’re talking! So, 2712 tons is 86,784,000 ounces so we times that by ten to get the number of teeth that can be crowned with the gold consumption of 2006. That is 867,840,000 teeth. Using this figure, on the average every man, women and child in the USA could get three teeth crowned with gold every year.
The problem is that with Gold selling for over $1,000 an ounce the crime rate would sky rocket. But, that’s another story.
Great Pyramid of Khufu
We have all seen the pictures and if you are lucky, you have seen it live. It's 756 feet long on each side, 450 high and is composed of 2,300,000 blocks of stone, each averaging 2 1/2 tons in weight. Until the 19th century, it was the tallest building in the world and, at the age of 4,500 years, it is the only one of the famous "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" that still stands. It is the Great Pyramid of Khufu, at Giza, Egypt.
The weight of the Great Pyramid is 5,750,000 tons. By Way of contrast the CN Tower, the Worlds tallest building, until the *Burg in Dubai surpassed it, weighs Total weight of 130,000 tons. The Great Pyramid of Khufu is 44 times heavier than the CN Tower.
* Dubai to be finished September 2009 will be 2,684 ft and tallest building in the world. Cost $4.5 Billon. |