Gas Powered

I live in the northeast U.S. which was hit by a fairly large snowstorm on the weekend of Dec 15th-16th. As I was snow-blowing about 8-10 inches off my driveway, I was reminded of a point given in a blog by user lindsay about the power of hydrocarbons. I kept looking at the little one-gallon tank on the side of the snow-blower thinking about how much work a gallon of gas can do.

I estimate the square area of my driveways, (one straight and then a circular part) to be about 1000 sq ft. Let’s say the total average depth of the snow was about 6 inches. We got more, but some blew off and where the cars were parked there wasn’t a lot, etc, so about 6 inches deep. 1000sq ft X .5 ft = 500cu. Ft of snow. This was not a heavy snow, not a lot of water content, so a cubic foot probably weighed about 5 or 6 lbs. I am using very rough estimates here, but I figure counting some paths I made besides my driveway that I moved about 3000 lbs of snow in one hour. That includes powering the snow-blower forward and all the inefficiencies involved in just keeping the engine running.

Here’s the kicker: When I opened the fuel tank after I was done, it still had a half gallon left.