Scientists Calculate the Cost of Powering a Dinosaur Theme Park

This week, twenty-five years ago, saw the release of the film “Jurassic Park”, the Steven Spielberg directed blockbuster that brought to the world’s cinema screens CGI generated and animatronic dinosaurs.  As cinema-goers currently enjoy the latest instalment in this multi-billion-dollar franchise – “Fallen Kingdom”, we could reflect on how our perceptions regarding the Dinosauria has changed since the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s 1990 novel first hit our screens.

Celebrating Twenty-Five Years of Jurassic Park

The first edition of Jurassic Park published in 1990, Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster followed three years later.

We could comment on how these movies have enthused a whole generation of new scientists, with many opting for a career in palaeontology, first inspired by the amazing prehistoric animals brought to life on the silver screen.  Instead, let’s leave the speculation to others about whether it would ever be possible to resurrect a long extinct group of animals, the last of which roamed the Earth sixty-six million years ago and consider one of the more practical aspects of converting an island into a dinosaur themed tourist attraction – how much power would it take to run Jurassic Park?

Thanks to E.ON and the assistance of some very clever physicists at Imperial College London, we have an answer to this question.

It would take 455 million kWh to power a real-life Dinosaur Kingdom.  That’s enough to power half the homes in Harrogate for a year.   Furthermore, team members at Everything Dinosaur have calculated, that based on an average UK household’s power consumption of around 5,000 kWh per annum, the annual power consumption of your typical prehistoric animal populated park would permit you to run the average UK home for around 91,000 years!   That should be enough gas and electricity to see you comfortably through the next Ice Age.

The Cost of Powering a Prehistoric Animal Theme Park

The energy costs involved in running a “Prehistoric Park”.

Picture Credit: E.ON

Running a Real-Life Jurassic Park

From a huge aquarium to house the semi-aquatic Spinosaurus to a dinosaur embryo cooling fridge and egg incubator, the physics experts investigated how much energy each feature would need to keep the park running over twelve months.  The final figure calculated was 455,145,418 kWh, costing approximately £131,732 a day.  We wonder how much money the owners of the theme park would have saved if they had instructed their geneticists to re-create dinosaurs as they probably were, that is, equipped with their own insulation in the form of downy, feathery coats.

If Feathered Dinosaurs had been Genetically Engineered – This Might Have Reduced the Annual Fuel Bill

If dinosaurs had been genetically engineered so that they retained their feathers, would insulated dinosaurs have reduced the annual fuel bill?

Picture Credit: Zhao Chuang PNSO

Modern Energy Solutions to Accommodate Ancient Animals

For any billionaire with aspirations to build a real-life “Jurassic Park”, having an understanding of the running costs would be an important component of the business plan.

Scott Somerville, E.ON’s Head of Advertising, PR and Campaigns, stated:

“With huge 10,000 volt electric fences and an aviary designed to house pterosaurs to name just two of the Dinosaur Kingdom’s unusual features, we suspected the energy needed to power the whole park would be big – possibly equivalent to powering a whole region within the UK.  But what our figures show is that it’s actually a massive amount!  It’s about the same as powering 30,142 average UK households a year – roughly equivalent to powering half the homes in Harrogate – but by adopting modern solutions, the power requirement and costs could be even less.”

Prehistoric Poo Turned into Power

The operators of any theoretical theme park, in which the main attractions would have quite happy consumed visitors for their breakfast, would need the very latest in safety features.  There have been five films in the “Jurassic Park/Jurassic World” franchise to date and we all know what happens when things go wrong – it does not end well for the tourists.  However, innovative and environmentally friendly methods of power generation could be adopted to keep those fences charged.  The dinosaurs themselves could play a role in helping to keep running costs from mutating into monstrous proportions, as E.ON’s Scott Somerville went onto explain:

“By generating electricity using technology like a biomass fuelled Combined Heat and Power station, park owners could turn dinosaur droppings into electricity.  Add on other solutions like solar and battery storage, then the park could ultimately benefit from a cheaper, sustainable and more reliable source of electricity instead having to deal with a ‘raptor rampage’ every time the generators that power the electric fences go down.”

For any would-be entrepreneurs with a few billion burning a hole in their pocket, further information on E.ON’s estimates of the running costs of a real-life dinosaur theme park can be found here: Dinosaur Kingdom Running Costs.

As for the rest of us, read the books, watch the movies, it is likely to be a lot less expensive and a good deal safer too.

If anyone or any organisation did really set out to create a dinosaur themed tourist attraction, populated by living, breathing, albeit genetically engineered prehistoric animals, then we suspect it would “spark” a Tyrannosaurus rex-sized debate.  Feathers would be well and truly ruffled!

Some of the First Land Vertebrates Lived in Antarctica

The fossilised remains of two newly described Late Devonian tetrapods have helped to shed new light on the evolution of land vertebrates.  Since most of the known Devonian tetrapod fossils are associated with equatorial palaeoenvironments, it had been thought that the first animals with back bones to adapt to a life on land must have lived in very close to the equator.  However, these new specimens lived on the southernmost portion of the giant super-continent Gondwana.  These early land pioneers of 360 million years ago were living within the Antarctic circle.

A Life Reconstruction of the Two Newly Described Tetrapod Species from the Waterloo Farm Site

The Waterloo Farm area of South Africa during the Late Devonian (Tutusius and Umzantsia).

Picture Credit: Maggie Newman

The evolution of the first land animals from fish during the Devonian geological period is regarded as a key event in the history of life on Earth.  Newly described fossils from the Waterloo Farm locality near Grahamstown (Easter Cape Province, South Africa), are challenging current perceptions about where in the world the first land vertebrates evolved.

Lead author of the scientific paper, published in the journal “Science”, Dr Robert Gess (Albany Museum, Grahamstown), explained:

“Whereas all previously found Devonian tetrapods came from localities which were in tropical regions during the Devonian, these specimens lived within the Antarctic circle.”

The First African Devonian Tetrapods

The researchers, including co-author Professor Per Ahlberg (Uppsala University, Sweden), name two new species Tutusius umlambo and Umzantsia amazana from fragmentary bones from a road cutting at the Waterloo Farm site, bones from the shoulder girdle related to these new early tetrapods, are helping palaeontologists to gain a better understanding of the development of the shoulder girdle from a fish to that of a tetrapod, adapted to walking around on land.

Tutusius and Umzantsia, are Africa’s earliest known four-legged vertebrates by a remarkable 70 million years.  The approximately one-metre-long Tutusius umlambo (named in honour of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu) and the somewhat smaller Umzantsia amazana are both incomplete.  Tutusius is represented by a single bone from the shoulder girdle, whereas Umzantsia is known from a greater number of bones, but they both appear similar to previously known Devonian tetrapods.  Alive, they would have resembled a cross between a salamander and a fish, with an amphibian-like head, stubby legs with numerous fingers and a tail that was reminiscent of a tadpole’s.

Scale Drawings of Tutusius and the Smaller Umzantsia

New Late Devonian Tetrapods from southern Gondwana.  Known bones highlighted in green.

Picture Credit: University of Witwatersrand

The Waterloo Farm site, where the fossils were discovered, is a road cutting first exposed two years ago after controlled rock-cutting explosions by the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL).  This very important fossil site is along the N2 highway between Grahamstown and the Fish River.  The construction crew exposed dark, grey mudstones of the Witpoort Formation.  The strata represent sedimentary deposits laid down in a brackish, tidal river estuary.  The rocks preserve numerous fossils, including animals and plants.

To read Everything Dinosaur’s article about the fortuitous discovery of this important fossil site: Roadway Leads to Devonian Deposit

Antarctic Tetrapods

The discovery of these fossils is extremely significant not only for what was found, but where they were found.  Devonian tetrapod fossils are found in widely scattered localities.  However, if the continents are mapped back to their Devonian positions, it emerges that all previous finds are from rocks deposited in the palaeotropics, between 30 degrees north and south of the equator.

Almost all these rare and important fossils come from Laurasia, a super-continent that later fragmented into North America, Europe and Greenland.  Umzantsia and Tutusius have certainly bucked this trend.  Gondwana, the much larger, southern super-continent (made up of present -day South America, Australia, Madagascar, Australia, India and Africa), has hitherto yielded virtually no evidence of Devonian tetrapods.  Footprints ascribed to early tetrapods have been discovered in Australia and an isolated jawbone was found in New South Wales.  When this jawbone fossil was first studied, scientists thought it represented the jaw of a lobe-finned fish.  However, subsequent research led to the conclusion that this single bone came from a primitive tetrapod.  The species Metaxygnathus denticulus was erected.  During the later stages of the Devonian, this part of Australia was associated with the northern Gondwana.  It would have been located in the tropics.  As a result, it was assumed that movement of vertebrates from water onto land (terrestrialisation) also occurred in the tropics.  Attempts to understand the causes of these major macroevolutionary steps therefore focused on conditions prevalent in tropical water bodies.

The fossil Cleithrum of T. umlambo

The Cleithrum of Tutusius umlambo (part of the shoulder girdle).

Picture Credit: University of Witwatersrand

Challenging Current Perceptions and Assumptions About Tetrapod Evolution

The two early tetrapods named from Waterloo Farm fossils, also come from Gondwana, but from an environment associated with the southernmost part of the super-continent.  Waterloo Farm was approximately seventy degrees south, within the Antarctic circle.   Many plant and insect fossils recovered from the road side indicate that the climate was much milder than the Antarctic circle today, but it would still have been cold and during the long winter season, this region would have experienced many months when the sun did not appear above the horizon.  These amphibians would have had to endure long periods of darkness.

The Location of the Waterloo Farm Site in the Late Devonian

The location of Waterloo Farm and Grahamstown where a substantial number of Devonian fossils have been found.  Look for the green label.

Picture Credit: University of Witwatersrand with additional annotation by Everything Dinosaur

The researchers conclude that these fossils change our understanding of the distribution of Devonian tetrapods.  We now know that tetrapods occurred throughout the world by the Late Devonian and that their evolution and terrestrialisation could realistically have occurred anywhere.