I have an overall interest in numbers and especially numbers dealing with efficiency. After much reading on these forums, it appears the average car engine is about 20% efficient. This means that 80% of the energy generated by burning fuel is lost as heat that provides no work.
I stumbled upon a Wiki chart and observed that the gas turbine engine is listed as 40% efficient. Can it be that commercial planes produce more power per BTU than our cars? If so, why aren't we all riding
these?
Does anyone know the typical efficiency of a rocket engine? How about the solid-fuel rocket booster on the space shuttle? This never struck me as particularly efficient, but perhaps it is?
Energy conversion efficiency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia