A Drop In The Bucket

[anthony gorman]

The drop in the bucket I am referring to is the amount of gas that is wasted through drops at the pump. Every time I go to the gas station and pump gas there are always a couple drops that come out of the nozzle as I put it back to the pump. This happens at all of the gas pumps and stations in my area.

So this is about how much gas is wasted a year in these wasted drops.

Shell was kind enough to give me their estimates on how many stations they have and how many customers they have per year. So I will use their data. Keep in mind this is just one gas company.

Raw data:

Shell has approximately 70 million customers a year (in the U.S.)
Shell has approximately 8,101 customers per hour (70mill/12/30/24=8,101)

There are about 130 drops of liquid in 1 ounce
128 ounces in 1 gallon
There are 16,640 drops in 1 gallon

Calculations:

Lets say that Shell has 8,101 customers per hour
One drop per customer equals 8,101 drops per hour
8,101 X 24 = 194,424 drops a day
194,424 X 30 = 5,832,720 drops a month
5,832,720 X 12 = 69,992,640 drops a year

69,992,640(# of drops a year) / 128(ounces in 1 gal) = 546,817.5 gallons lost per year

546,817.5 X $1.80 (cost of a gallon of gas) = $984,271.5 (dollars of gas wasted per year)


Conclusion:

I tried to be as safe as I could with the numbers like the amount of drops per use and the cost of a gallon of gas (I’ve noticed more than one drop). With these estimates the waste is almost a million dollars or 546,817.5 gallons a year. And this is just one company, and just in the United States.

Source for Shell info: Stan.Mays@shell.com

[wannabe]

Interesting... I also recently learned that topping off your tank actually wastes even more money because newer nozzles have a special sensor that prevents more gas from going into the tank - it gets recycled.

[Linxs]

hehe someone as bored as I am..... I always shake off the nasal and make sure it's not dripping before I remove it from the tank.

[98v6]

did you know that gas is even more of a pollutant if it evaporates without burning? so this translates to a pretty serious portion of our air pollution... if there was a way to upgrade the nozzles and prevent this... catch my drift?

[anthony gorman]

Originally posted by 98v6:
did you know that gas is even more of a pollutant if it evaporates without burning? so this translates to a pretty serious portion of our air pollution... if there was a way to upgrade the nozzles and prevent this... catch my drift?

Thats a very good point 98v6

[White95]

ya this why i always lift the hose above the filler hole when i'm finished pumping. just lift the hose up for a second then put it back, no drip then

[02PewterFirebird]

All that did was confuse the heck out of me. But, it makes sense.

[C.O.Jones]

Originally posted by anthony gorman:
The drop in the bucket I am referring to is the amount of gas that is wasted through drops at the pump. Every time I go to the gas station and pump gas there are always a couple drops that come out of the nozzle as I put it back to the pump. This happens at all of the gas pumps and stations in my area.

So this is about how much gas is wasted a year in these wasted drops.

Shell was kind enough to give me their estimates on how many stations they have and how many customers they have per year. So I will use their data. Keep in mind this is just one gas company.

Raw data:

Shell has approximately 70 million customers a year (in the U.S.)
Shell has approximately 8,101 customers per hour (70mill/12/30/24=8,101)

There are about 130 drops of liquid in 1 ounce
128 ounces in 1 gallon
There are 16,640 drops in 1 gallon

Calculations:

Lets say that Shell has 8,101 customers per hour
One drop per customer equals 8,101 drops per hour
8,101 X 24 = 194,424 drops a day
194,424 X 30 = 5,832,720 drops a month
5,832,720 X 12 = 69,992,640 drops a year

69,992,640(# of drops a year) / 128(ounces in 1 gal) = 546,817.5 gallons lost per year

546,817.5 X $1.80 (cost of a gallon of gas) = $984,271.5 (dollars of gas wasted per year)


Conclusion:

I tried to be as safe as I could with the numbers like the amount of drops per use and the cost of a gallon of gas (I’ve noticed more than one drop). With these estimates the waste is almost a million dollars or 546,817.5 gallons a year. And this is just one company, and just in the United States.

Source for Shell info: Stan.Mays@shell.com

:eek: [img]graemlins/omg.gif[/img]

Has to be an engineer....

[98Camaro3.8]

When you preflight an airplane, you always take a fuel sample from each tank (among other places) to make sure it's clean. Up until a couple years ago, we used to just pour it on the ground. That was a couple cups per flight. Now we could get fined if we're caught doing that.

[ReodDai]

Originally posted by C.O.Jones:

Has to be an engineer....

Has to have too much time on their hands...

[hou-tex-six]

So...

If I pay 180-185 cents a gallon, each drop is costing me .011 cents. [(183cents/gallon) / (16640drops/gallon) = .011 cents/drop]

Therefore if I lose that .011 cents say 75 times a year that I put gas in my car (every 5 days), I would loose .825 of a cent in a year. Round that up to a penny, I dont even pick up pennies.

Disclaimer: my math is probably off, so I might get called out and owned.

Cp

[RallyRed 98]

math seems right...

but if you lose a drop, and your two friends lose a drop, and their two friends lose a drop... and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends

[12secondv6]

Hmmmmmm, what about the wasted nitrous? [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[BobsSilverSix]

Wow That was some really intresting sh*t.Thats why I read the Lounge forum lots of coo sh*t.

[wannabe]

Originally posted by 98v6:
did you know that gas is even more of a pollutant if it evaporates without burning? so this translates to a pretty serious portion of our air pollution... if there was a way to upgrade the nozzles and prevent this... catch my drift?

The current nozzles are actually desinged to prevent a lot of drippage; they're a significant step up from the older ones. However, you're right, it would definitely help stop waste if they could fix that.