Environment Family
Chapter Two: Housekeeping
An airport near Y City. Airplanes arrive and depart continually. Tamotsu's plane from S City seems to have arrived safely. Yuko and Susumu are waiting for her in the arrival lobby.
Susumu spots Tamotsu. "There she is!"
Tamotsu appears in the arrival lobby with a huge piece of baggage.
"Hi, Grandma!"
"Oh hi, Susumu. I didn't expect you to come to the airport. I'm so happy to see you,"
gushes Tamotsu, smiling as always.
Susumu tries to lift the large piece of baggage Tamotsu is holding. It is so much heavier than he expected he can't help but exclaim, "Wow, this is heavy!"
Tamotsu smiles making Susumu feel slightly embarrassed.
You must be tired after your long trip. Was there any turbulence during the flight?" asks Yuko.
"Hi, Yuko. Thank you for coming to meet me. The weather was fine and I enjoyed the flight very much."
"Grandma, what's inside?"
Susumu is holding the heavy baggage in his arms.
"You can try to guess, but you probably won't get it right,"
grins Tamotsu, refusing to tell him what is inside.
The three of them take the bus from the airport to Y City.
Energy consumed by jumbo jet 1 eu = 5 km
A jumbo jet with 400 passengers aboard can transport one person approximately twenty-two kilometers on one liter of fuel. The fuel used by jumbo jets is almost same as household-use kerosene. One kilogram of kerosene contains about 11,000 kcal. If the specific gravity is 0.83, one liter of kerosene has 9,130 kcal of energy. That means that by using one eu (2,000 kcal) of fuel, a jumbo jet can travel approximately five kilometers. How far can a car go on the same amount of fuel? Let's make a comparison.
[Go to the page on the fuel efficiency of cars]
Source: Petroleum in Our Daily Life , compiled by the Japan Petroleum Institute (published by Kodansha Scientific).
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