How many Big Macs does it take to run a boat?

Combine severe procrastination at work with rising gas prices and seeing the end of Back to the Future recently (you know when Dr. Emmit Brown puts beer bottles and banana peels in the Mr Fusion attachment to the flux capacitor of his time machine). I started wondering what it would take to run a boat.

Considering the new 330HP Monsoon motor in the VLX, you can calculate the following: 1 HP=746 watts so the new motor in the Malibus is a 246,180 watt motor. One step further and that is equivalent to 839,850 BTU (over an hour). Going even further into geek-dome, convert that to joules (88,6041,750), gram-calories (211,642,200) or food calories (211,642.2). So if you had a Mr Fusion, it would take 378 Big Macs per hour to keep the boat running at max speed. Make that a Super size value meal and it only takes 192.

Bwaaahahahahahaha!

Possibly based on wrong calories Shawn:

According to McDonald's Web site, a Big Mac packs 590 calories and 34 grams of fat, while a large order of french fries weighs in at 540 calories and 26 grams of fat

Plug that into the calculator and see what yo come up with.

How 'bout using the Arby's Market Fresh sandwiches.....weighing in at just over 900 calories!

Can I hang with the pocket protector crowd, too?

I think pizza will offer the best calorie/serving ratio.

Yea, I used the wrong number for the Big Mac...I was a little low at 560 for the Big Mac and 1100 for the SuperSize value meal.

I dunno Swass, you design Web Pages and are a Tech Writer?

Just my $2*10^(-2)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

My Toyota produces 223,800 KW, but the Big Mac comparisons don't apply. Last time I was over there they featured a delightful treat called the Shogun Burger at the Kyoto McDonalds. I don't know what was in it, but it didn't taste like beef and I think I saw a suction cup or two in there. "Calories don't count if they come back up, right?" -Calista Flockhart

The new monsoon is a 335 hp motor not 330 hp.
So you will need some more Big Mac burgers.

Well if your going to be a geek do it right:
335hp is the output not the input, what we really need to do it get the consumption rate of the engine and relate that to the energy in the Big Mack.

Sounds like we have too much time on our hands right now. We need to be out riding. I got a heck of a laugh out of this. thanks

You should try runing a mastercraft in the UK then! Over £4 per gallon (about $7) now thats expensive!

darren is correct. engine consumes more energy than its output. also, what is the efficiency of the mr fusion?

what is the big mac per hour rate?

I figured since I assumed 100% efficiency in the conversion of the Big Mac to energy, I could assume a 100% efficient motor. I'll revamp the calculation once the oil companies stop holding me hostage for even suggesting an alternative energy source.

Now, if we cold run an engine on piss and vinegar we would all be laughing.

One other important thing you guys forgot is the actual cost of the Big Mac and fries. If you figure at least in Missouri you can get a supersized Big Mac meal for around $4.50 give or take a little. And a gallon of gas costs ~$1.45. I have no idea what kind of gas consumption the Monsoon gets, I think I might be safe to say somewhere around 10 GPH, or $14.50 to run the boat on gas for an hour. Now based on the preliminary data from above you would need 192 supersized value meals at $4.50 each or roughly $864/hour. Not to mention the logistics that would be involved with supplying the Mr. Fusion Big Macs. Maybe even a few less if you also used the large non diet soda that came with the value meal.

Wow, I now have a different view of Back to the Future! Their is no way that time machine could of ever worked! My child hood is scarred!

tony, remember that the time machine worked on trash.

good point... at least that explains the cost, or how and why it makes sense, but still their is not enough enery in trash to generate 1.21 Gigawatts. At least not a bananna peel, newspaper and some beer!

Alright, I figured I would add this for all of the wakeboarding geeks, nerds, and well just anyone else that wants to have something kinda cool.

I found this conversion table a while ago and it is awsome. It lets you convert just about anything to anything. It is definatly worth downloading-it is free by the way. It is some program some guy wrote, but is seems to be very thourogh and accurate. It is called Convert 4.0 and you can get it at the link below...

http://www.joshmadison.com/software/convert/

STOP THE MADNESS!!!

Someone is just going to have to get the spec sheet on the Mr Fusion and do this properly, or else it is all just wasted figures.

you call it wasted, I call it the First Approximation! It puts us in the ball park!

seen as it is fusion....when you are doing that nuclear stuff I have a feeling you might be able to get more energy out of it than the caloric values.

So are you saying that Mr Fusion is breaking down the molecular structure of the "trash" atoms and extracting the additional power that way? Interesting...

that is close to what I am saying. fusion is messing with the atomic structure of atoms. an example is the work they do with fusing hydrogen atoms and coming up with some other atom with a higher periodic number like helium or something. fission, how our nuclear power plants work, is the opposite, splitting atoms. we might have to determine what atoms the big macs are composed of, determine how much energy can be extracted by taking those atoms, and combining them into different atoms.

yeah.

The energy you get from fusion can be estimated by a very simple calculation...

e=mc^2

If fusion did work on earth, well cold fusion, fusion works just fine on the sun, a Big Mac would be more than enough energy to run a boat for a very very long time. Caloric energy is just what you get by "burning" the food, along the same lines as burning gas. Neither gets all of the energy available.

See, now we are getting somewhere. And I bet that if you always ride downhill, you would get even better efficiency out of it!