A team of researchers has developed a process for extracting combustible methane gas from garbage. With a specially adapted internal combustion engine, the team claims that an automobile can be propelled 25 km per day from the garbage accumulated by a small village. Their experimental car travels 85 km per day for an estimated cost of $5 (this is the allocated cost for methane process equipment-the garbage is essentially free).
a. How many similarly populated villages are required to produce the garbage to fuel 150,000 km of annual driving by a fleet of cars? What is the annual cost?
b. How does your answer to Part (a) compare to a gasoline-fueled car averaging 15 km per liter when the cost of gasoline is $2.00 per liter?