Red Stack: Cars

Note: All future "Red Stack" and "Green Stack" posts appearing in this blog will focus on the Netherlands.


This post will analyze the power used, per person per day, due to driving cars.

The total population of the Netherlands is 16.5 million. (Source: google.com/publicdata/)
The average person in the Netherlands travels 15,5000 km/yr. (Source: cbs.com/2004)
The average car was estimated to get 30 mpg. (This estimate is actually a little low, meaning the people of the Netherlands consume less energy than calculated).

The following calculations and conversions were used to estimate the Energy per day that a person uses traveling by car:

15,500/365 = 42 km/yr
1 mpg = 0.425143707 km/litre
energy per unit of fuel = 10 kWh/litre (Source: McKay)
30 mpg * 0.425143707 = 12.75 km/litre

Energy per day = (distance traveled per day/distance of unit of fuel)*energy per unit of fuel

= [42 km/day]/[12.75 km/litre] * 10 kWh/litre = 32.94 kWh/day