Did the Bee beat the Beatle?

Recently NPR, the much revered Public Radio Station, ran an article titled Bee Vs. Car: Who Gets More Miles Per Gallon?. You can listen to it on the embedded mp3 link below.


The article states that the new VW prototype will be giving a mileage of 170 mpg. I was very much surprised and felt happy that someone out there is working on creating better cars with vastly improved mileage.

The sad part is that NPR would not let the carmaker have their day of glory. I don't think NPR is anti-technology or anti-science. If anything, they are the opposite. One would wonder why they would run such an article under the science section. The only reason I can thing of, is that the creators of the segment thought it was funny. But sometimes, being funny can be out of character for somebody like NPR that’s known for its sincere, thought provoking, serious news content. Also at time the naive joke can do unintended harm to other worthy causes. I know VW has a long way before they can have a successful car on the road with 170mpg and this article will have little impact if the technology advance becomes a reality. Here is a CNET review from the 2009 Frankfurt Auto Show. This car can be on the roads by 2013.

So, what is the beef that I have with this article? The article states that VW new car is promising 170 miles per gallon of car fuel gasoline. They think that a Bee beats this car hands down with its 4.7 million miles per gallon of bee fuel i.e., honey. They also had a bee expert supporting their claim who came up with the number for bee mileage - 4,704,280 mpg.

So I did a small math. A bee weighs 80-100 milligrams, lets take the upper end 100 milligrams. Also lets say it carried twice it's weight during the test which is being very liberal. A bee typically carries about 50% of its body weight in the form of pollen during its regular daily job. So a bee carries a weight of 300 milligrams and covers 4.7 million miles on a gallon of honey. With those numbers, the bees takes 1.41 miles to move a ton of weight. Let us compare this with the VW. A car weighs anywhere from 3 to 12 tons; 3 tons being the compact care and 12 tons being the heavy pick up truck. A compact car gives about 30 mpg. So a car not including the passenger, can move a ton of weight to about 90 miles. To me the math is very simple, 1.41 is far less than 90 and the car is the clear winner. There are other problems with this article as well. But I don’t want to list them all out and appear that I am anti-bee. On the contrary, I thank the bees for producing the sweet honey I use in my tea. For all the other views against the article, please view the comments in the NPR site at the end of the article.

What about the unintended harm that this article causes? Consider this; it took decades for the NHTSA fuel economy regulations to enforce fuel economy improvement of 5-10mpg by the carmakers. If a car maker tries and succeeds in making a car that improves the fuel economy from 20-30mpg to about 170-200 mpg, I would give them all kind of support. They are attempting to achieve something far beyond the minimum standards set by the government regulatory bodies. When fuel economy is improved by 8 times, it significantly reduces the current fuel consumption and thereby, provide the fruits of the current cheap fossil fuel we enjoy now to couple more generations. Any endeavor to extend the life of fossil fuel and the benefits we enjoy to future generations needs all the support.

We are in an age where every scienctific view is questioned. Consider this article by USA Today - Is the global warming movement cooling? The problem with the article is not the content but the title itself. Most people read just headlines. They conclude that global warming movement is cooling off and don’t trust any news in support of it adding to the feedback loop. Thanks much also to the conservative political and news media who have already discounted scientific evidence on global warming. They think that green house gas effect is a myth and they drill their way into having their way of life.

Articles like the bee humiliating a car can only cause more people lose interest in scientific and technological advancement. So this is my advice to NPR. Leave the thoughtless, provocative ridicule to someone else (the world has enough of those) and act your normal responsible way. Being serious can be nerdy, but the world needs the nerd to spread the scienfic word out. NPR please be that nerd. You are lot cooler that way.