Energy Efficiency: Fossil Fuels vs Solar and Wind

In the process of powering things with fossil fuels, first geologists make guesses about where exactly oil, coal and gas deposits may be; then miners dig to where they hope the deposits are. Sometimes they have to dig several times before they find anything, because the geologists, after all, were just guessing. 

Once the fuel is found, it is transported, by ship, train, truck, or, in the case of oil and gas, pipeline, to refineries, where the raw material is made into usable products. Then coal, oil and gas are sent, again, by ship, train or truck, or, in the case of oil and gas, pipeline, to power stations, which burn them to generate electricity, which is sent to the grid, where utilities distribute it to businesses and homes. 

In addition, diesel oil and gasoline are sent, by pipeline, tanker ship, railroad or tanker truck, to gas stations and other users. Coal and kerosene are still burned by millions of people for heat and cooking in some of the poorer regions of the world.

The entire trip, from being in the ground to where it is burned for energy or heat, can be dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of miles. Just think for a moment about the distance from Saudi Arabia to the United States. 

Now compare this to solar or wind energy. In the simplest example, the journey is measured in feet, from where sunlight is converted to electricity by the rooftop solar panels on a house and then travels to the house's wiring and to its battery storage. The electricity may travel as much as several miles if there is some left over and it is fed into the grid. Or the distance may be dozens or, in rare cases, hundreds of miles, if the electricity is generated by solar and wind farms operated by utilities. But no ships, pipelines or trains are needed, and the only trucks involved are the ones carrying workers who build, install and maintain the electrical infrastructure. 

Building, operating and maintaining solar cells and wind turbines is a very simple and inexpensive thing compared to mining, refining and distributing fossil fuels. And solar and wind energy keep getting less and less expensive as more of it is generated, while fossil fuels keep getting more expensive. The point where electricity from solar or wind will be cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels? That point is several years ago, and the gap just keeps growing.

Plus with fossil fuels, there are those pesky little details of pollution and global warming. And also accidental fires and explosions.

An Open Letter to Time + Tide, the Australian Horological Publication

You've got a current headline which reads:

RECOMMENDED READING: Apple sold nearly 10 million more watches than the entire Swiss watch industry in 2019

Well, good luck with the Apple watch crowd. Because all of these recent articles about quartz watches and smart watches are losing us who like mechanical watches and used to like Time & Tide. We had 45 years to start liking quartz watches before the Apple Watch was invented -- didn't happen, did it? And yes, we do know that quartz watches are much more accurate and that smart watches do all sorts of amazing things. We just don't particularly care.

It also will do you no good with me to compare smart watches to electric cars, because I'm already completely on board with EV's. That's right: electric cars and mechanical watches for me, please. And solar and wind power and the death of the oil, coal and gas industry just as soon as possible!

And I'd dump mechanical watches too if they spewed poisonous gases the way internal-combustion vehicles do -- but they don't, do they?

I know, the Apple watch geeks will stare at us mechanical-watch geeks as if we were pods, as if we were simply inexplicable beings. News flash: most people already looked at us that way, and we already knew it, and we already didn't care. To us, the others were always the pods, and right now, anybody who tries to talk us into Apple watches over mechanical watches -- is of course a pod. There's not even the slightest question about it. And there's also not even the slightest question that some of the people who work at your magazine are one of us and not one of you, and they'll quit, and they and we will be just fine. In fact we'll be better because we'll be just a little bit more convinced of each other's genuineness once pods like you have been weeded out.

We had of course assumed that you, Time & Tide, were one of us, but we'll live. We'll live wearing mechanical watches, and sometimes even carrying mechanical pocket watches, and not being the slightest bit tired of having to pull them out of our pockets every time we want to know the imperfectly, mechanically-kept time.

We'll be just fine. Mechanical watches won't disappear. Quartz didn't make them disappear, smart watches and sleazy sell-outs like you, Time + Tide, won't make them disappear. Mechanical watches are already not about maximum profits any more than they're about the absolutely best-available precision time. Rats jumping ship will just make the love and dedication of those who remain shine more clearly. You're just pushing mechanicals further in the direction of art. Art hasn't disappeared.