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Among the many questions that have come up since
President Clinton's economic message is What's a
BTU?
Like a CFS or an MPH, the BTU is a unit of measurement -- the amount of heat required to raise one pound of water from 63 degrees F to 64 degrees.
BTU stands for British Thermal Unit,
and I recall
a physics teacher once explaining that when Her Majesty's
navy switched from wind to steam in the 19th century, the
patriotic coal-mine owners gladly sold their culm piles to
the Admiralty at the going rate for high-grade
anthracite.
Attempting to make these defense contractors honest, the British government began testing coal and setting the purchase price by its heat content. Thus the BTU: coal with 14,000 BTU per pound is worth more than coal with 8,000.
In this modern metric age of calories based on grams and
Celsius, why do with bother with the antiquated BTU?
Perhaps because calories are confusing. There are 252 real
scientific calories in a BTU, but the familiar food
calories are actually kilocalories, and it's hard to know
which one is meant when somebody says calories.
At any rate, the Clinton administration has proposed a broad-based energy tax, based on BTU content, and the tax will be collected at the source.
Initially, this could be a good deal. The rich will pay more -- the BTU tax on diamonds will be about twice that on coal, since burning diamonds provide about twice as much heat.
In an average winter week, we receive perhaps 10 pounds of junk mail. Though I am grateful for this frequent and free delivery of fuel to heat our home and cook our food, I suspect we'll be among those who make sacrifices. Over a year, that's 6.25 million BTU, leading to a tax burden that may well put some bulk mailers out of business and reduce our fuel supply.
Junk food could feel the same squeeze as we fuel our bodies. A pound of potato chips has 2,400 food calories, or 2.4 million real calories, which is 9,524 BTU. A pound of pork rinds provides even more energy --- 10,011 BTU.
Contrast that to the wholesome apple, at a mere 973 BTU per pound, or nutritious parsley, at 781, and one of the worst body fuels, broccoli, at 465.
Doubtless the junk-food producers and junk mailers will complain about the unfairness of the BTU tax, and eventually there will be a Republican administration in Washington to hearken unto their heart-felt pleas.
Low-lifes who now glean firewood from the national forests for $7 a cord will learn that there are 16 million BTU in a cord of jackpine, and will pay accordingly.
Upscale country folks who install solar-electric panels will find the revenuers at their door, calculating imputed BTU taxes, and the same will hold for those tax-evading scofflaws with solar panels or even south-facing windows.
The BTU tax may sound rather simple now, but just wait until the Republicans try to make it fair.
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