Giga-Pee (17-11-14)
Here's a somewhat funny and completely useless piece of thinking. One
of these days, my older son asked me whether at any second, somebody is
going to the loo. I answered yes, and certainly a lot more than only
one person. Then it got me thinking.
If we assume there are 7.6 billion (7.6E9) people on earth, everybody
has to pee 3 times a day, and peeing takes 10 seconds, then on average
there are 7.6E6 * 3 * 10 sec / 86400 sec = 2.6E9 or **more than 2
million people peeing each moment in time.**
Further assuming during those 10 seconds, each person is peeing 0.2 L,
the resulting stream is 2.6E6 * 0.02 L/sec = 5.2E4 L/sec or
approximately **52 cubicmetres per second.**
With Earth's mean temperature of about 15 degC, and the temperature of
the human body at about 37 degC, resulting in a difference of about 20
K, and assuming pee has the same density of 1000 kg/m3 and specific
heat of 4.2 kJ/kg/K as water, this represents a thermodynamic power of
52 m3/sec * 20 K * 4.2 kJ/kg/K * 1000 kg/m3 = 4.4E6 kJ/sec = 4.4E9
J/sec i.e **over 4 Gigawatt** -- about twice the installed power of the
[1]Aswan hydroelectric power plant in Egypt.
.:.
References
1.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam
