In one of my last articles, I questioned whether we need all those absurdly many electric devices (elektrischen Helferlein) I found in my household.
As it happens, I was invited to attend a factory tour at Porzellan Manufaktur Nympenburg a few days ago. And I was surprised to see that most of the machines used for making porcelain are not electrically powered. Basically, the only thing you use electricity for in manufacturing is the light.
The energy for the diverse tools and machines is generated with water power, for which a side channel of the Nymphenburg channel, which, with four metres of decline, produces quite some power, is used. And the energy is then transmitted to the work places () – where it moves diverse machines – by transmission belts. Everything is exactly like it was a few hundred years ago. As opposed to this, the ovens in the distillery are powered by gas.
The plant reminded me of pictures from the times of the “industrial revolution”. In those days, every manufacturing company or plant had at least one huge steam engine the power of which –by the standards of the time, said power was enormous – was then distributed to the various work places through a complicated system of scrollers, often needing several hours for the process.
And then electrification came along. The steam engines and mechanical power transmission systems disappeared. They were replaced by small, de-centralized electric motors and fuse boxes, transformers and cable systems.
What an improvement! No more soot and black faces. One should really imagine it was a huge step in the right direction.
Except that it was all a huge lie! After all, 50 % of all electricity world-wide is produced through burning coal! In other words, the electricity is produced by some kind of coal-powered steam engine. Also in Germany! In fact, in our country, we sometimes use particularly environment unfriendly brown coal, but also high-quality coal imported from, for instance, Australia. Before it can be shipped to Germany, it has to be transported from the outback to the harbours. Then it is carried through several oceans to Germany and then driven into the hinterland through Germany. What ecologic nonsense!
And if now I take a look at all those many electric devices I use, I am aware that in each of them half a steam engine is hidden. As likely as not, the good old steam engine with its transmission belts was not really a lot more inefficient than what happens today with first processing coal, then transport, electrification and transfer….
Actually, it seems to me that the water mill at the Nymphenburg porcelain manufacturing plant seems highly recommendable. The same is true for the windmill in youir garden or the photovoltaic on my roof.
RMD
(Translated by EG)
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