Ten Amazingly Mostly Worthless Facts
1 Driver of the Number 20 NASCAR, sponsored by The Home Depot, Tony Stewart is the proud owner of a Chevy H2. Tony is no stranger to luxury and has equipped his urban commando with some dubs, so he can sport some bling.
2 The faright pedal on the driver-side floorboard is the gas pedal.
3 Iraq supplied less than 4 percent of U.S. import crude oil consumption in 2003. The U.S.'s primary supplier of crude is Canada, which supplied 17 percent of the import oil consumption that same year. Mexico came in third with 13 percent, then came Venezuela with 11 percent.
4 When oil was struck in the Forties Field under the North Sea in 1969, it led to the discovery of at least 350 million tons of oil. However, by the year 2020, the world's known oil reserves are due to run out. By then, new oil fields will need to be found, probably in more and more inaccessible places. Prospectors looking for oil look for sedimentary basins which could be oil-bearing, and magnetic surveys and gravity surveys are often used. All rocks are magnetic, but the magnetism varies slightly from one rock to another, giving geologists clues to the structure and type of rocks that lie underground. Other clues include the density of the rock.
When the production wells have been drilled and lined with casing, a perforating gun is lowered down to drive explosive charges through the casing and cement and into the rock beyond to allow the oil to get into the wells. As oil is extracted, pressure may be maintained by injecting water or gas into the reservoir rock to displace the oil toward the production wells.
Even with the help of modern techniques, however, such as electrical and mechanical pumps, it is seldom possible to extract more than 30 to 50 percent of the oil in a field. Perhaps, a means will be found to get all the oil out of a dig. If so, millions more gallons would be available out of the wells, which have previously been drained dry. For more information, go to www.innerauto.com.
5 The torque converter in an automatic transmission "multiplies torque" by allowing the tranny to slip. The slippage reduces the load on the motor, preventing it from bogging and allowing it to operate at an optimal rpm. Maybe this device should be renamed from Torque Converter to Slippage Converter.
6 The U.S. imports about 60 percent of the 21,930,000 barrels used per day, as of March 2005. Every day, the U.S. consumes enough oil to cover a football field with a column of oil 2,500 feet tall.
7 The Dutch employed wind power to propel sail-mounted carriages, which raced along at 20 mph and held scores of passengers. It is quite probable that both speed and load capacity were exaggerated. Later, small carriages were equipped with windmills, with the mill vanes geared to the wheels. These were probably the first land vehicles to be propelled by anything other than animal or human muscle power, but people complained because the vehicles depended on the whim of a breeze.
8 Axlewrap is not a form of music.
9 In 1903, the automobile was gifted with the ability to fight back the weather by an enclosed cabin, thanks to the implementation of glass.
10 The United States makes up 5 percent of the world's population yet consumes 45 percent of the gasoline produced on earth.