At 11:29 PM 3/21/2009, Mike wrote:
>I heard once that a gallon of gasoline has the approx. the same
>power as a stick of dynamite.......

Well, a *cup* of gasoline contains as much *energy* as about *four*
pounds of high explosive, but because the rate of burning is so much
slower, a cup of gasoline mixed in air only delivers *power* at a
rate of about 3 gigawatts (still pretty respectable), while the high
explosive gives you 200+ gigawatts.  So it's kinda apples and oranges.

Ref: http://home.earthlink.net/~jimlux/energies.htm -- he did the
numbers so I could give you a reasonably quantitative answer without
doing all that nasty work.   :-)

  --
David Beierl - Providence RI USA -- http://pws.prserv.net/synergy/Vanagon/
'89 Po' White Star "Scamp"