1,000mph car has carbon footprint of 3.5 lactating cows

Bloodhound - bloody fast
Bloodhound - bloody fast

The Bloodhound SSC's attempt to shatter the world land speed record will apparently have the same carbon footprint as three and a half lactating cows, according to the projects engineering lead.

Interest has been high in the Bloodhound land speed record, with the team behind the famous Thrust SSC – which twice broke the record in 1997 – hoping that their efforts can inspire a new generation of engineers.

TechRadar took a look at the 1,000mph car's progress as part of Speed Week, in association with LG Optimus 2X, and found that one 10-mile Bloodhound run uses the same amount of energy required to light the Singapore Grand Prix night-event for 20 minutes.

"That sounds like we're burning an awful lot of fuel," said Bloodhound SSC's engineering lead, James Painter.

"But we're not doing that many runs in total, and as a complete project the calculations are that we are the equivalent of three and a half lactating cows, in terms of the amount of greenhouse gasses that we'll be releasing."

Bloodhound ssc

The project hopes to inspire, as well as hit the magic 1,000mph mark and break the land speed record.

"We're aiming to hit 1,000mph," concluded Painter. "But to be honest, if we hit 950 we'd be happy, as long as we hit all of our educational objectives as well.

"That side of things is just as important to us as breaking the record, because we want the next generation of kids to be inspired by Bloodhound SSC, rather than be intimidated by it."

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James Rivington

James was part of the TechRadar editorial team for eight years up until 2015 and now works in a senior position for TR's parent company Future. An experienced Content Director with a demonstrated history of working in the media production industry. Skilled in Search Engine Optimization (SEO), E-commerce Optimization, Journalism, Digital Marketing, and Social Media. James can do it all.