i don't think so.
Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
61–70 of 205 posts
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 'news' rhymes with 'pews' This must be a regional thing. I've never heard someone pronounce "news" as "nyooze". "Pews" is pronounced that way, however.
Default en-GB pronunciation is njuːz.
Wow, what a blind spot I have. Of course. When I imagine a Briton saying it, I hear that pronunciation.
I'm en-US, obviously :)
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#63Note that the article doesn't match the title. It answers the question "could we boot a modern civilization without fossil fuels"? A re -boot of modern civilization would be able to mine the garbage pits of current humanity.
Depends on how far we fall. If world population is a few thousands per continent, there are not enough people to do anything other than subsistence farming. By the time population builds up enough to think about anything else we have forgotten too much to know how use use those garbage pits - if indeed there is anything left. (As the article notes the first generation will probably use scavenge solar panels, but won't be able to recreate them when they fail)
You need a large population of farmers growing food to have excess for non farmers. We get around that with fossil fuels today. You also need surplus because the weather is not uniform, so you need enough for your society to supply itself for a few bad years, including the "freeloaders" doing something else.
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#64No, how the hell do we create steel without coal.
The article goes into detail about how Brazil is creating steel without coal right now.
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you do the metallurgy, manufacture the concrete, or synthesize the petrochemicals in the absence of fossil fuel energy? Examples given in the article were on the scale of post nuclear conflict societal collapse. No ports, no highways, no railways, no dual use infrastructure at all. No more fossil fuel deliveries happening. No deliveries of anything. Rebuilding in that environment would be challenging in the ex…
> metallurgy, manufacture the concrete, or synthesize the petrochemicals in the absence of fossil fuel energy I think you could use biomass to bootstrap these. Biosmass wouldn't be sustainable, but once you have the metallurgy, etc in place you could then build wind turbines.
You run out of biomass before you can bootstrap yourself enough to build wind turbines. Sure the dutch built windmills, but they didn't have refined metals in to make a generator.
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
To give an extreme example, Hunter-Gatherers generally didn't spend all their time hunting. There's every indication they spent only as much as early farmers at most. In some cases it was a few tens of hours per week per person. Population growth is a separate, rather more complicated topic.
But then you cannot have libraries, you cannot have universities, you cannot have laboratories or factories. Not if you have to constantly relocate to find more food.
Many of the groups we call "Hunter-Gatherers" weren't nomadic, despite popular imagination. Estimates for the early Holocene are that around 20-30% of all groups in some regions were at least partially sedentary. Some of the most well-studied modern groups were fully sedentary, and had high social and political complexity to boot.
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#67In addition to wood fuel, the other major non-fossil fuel available might be hydro power. The Hoover dam and the Tennessee valley authority produce huge amounts of electricity which could support some sort of industry.
But could we build the Hoover Dam with just wood and small hydro as power sources? Could we even build the meta things required to build the Hoover Dam, like the tools, the trucks transporting the concrete, the cranes, the roads to go there…
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
You can make coal from biomass, mainly wood (I'm not sure if some other plants could be used), but I guess it is antieconomical if you need lots of coal for high furnaces to make iron and/or steel.
it was economical in the middle ages for hundreds of years! But, having decent steel for your knights' armaments was also an existential concern for most power centers, a more peaceful society might deal with different economics.
Large areas were also deforested to provide the charcoal. Roughly 100kg wood to produce 1kg iron.
The Ruhr valley area was denuded already in Roman times due to this.
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Unlimited only if you don't take time into account. A big reason for the switch from charcoal to coal in steelmaking was running out of trees to make charcoal from.
Not really an issue. Knowledge steadily accumulates over time. The key foundations of human intelligence and ingenuity will always remains regardless of whether or not fossil fuels exist for us to exploit. Non-renewable resources only served to speed up our industrialization.
There was a government project on how to design a 10,000 year sculpture indicating that this is a nuclear wasteland.
No telling how to cut across language cultural barrier in case of a great reset.
Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> metallurgy, manufacture the concrete, or synthesize the petrochemicals in the absence of fossil fuel energy I think you could use biomass to bootstrap these. Biosmass wouldn't be sustainable, but once you have the metallurgy, etc in place you could then build wind turbines.
Biomass doesn’t burn hot enough.
How do you think they made iron before the industrial revolution? Hint: charcoal.