Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#91

Post by davidhbolton » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

mLuby wrote: post #76

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm with Musk on this, the only way we survive is to get the hell off Earth And as a plan, I think that's basically completely stupid. Even our worst case climate change projections give us an Earth that is incredibly more habitable than any extraterrestrial environment. The worst conditions you can find on this entire planet today are more habitable than the best you can find elsewhere in our star system. Think of…

Why not both? Luddites always whine about the resources "wasted" on space exploration, science, and now the beginnings of industry, but they don't appreciate how in so many ways the fruits of our efforts in space end up benefiting all of us here on Earth. And since those people claim to be concerned with finite resources and a fragile biosphere, why constrain ourselves to the resources of our mother planet (which res…

Much as I love Star Trek etc. It does appear that space travel is inherently bad for us planet dwellers what with the havoc it wreaks on the bodies of people who spend long periods in space. I'd love it not be so, but I do wonder if one possible future is exploration by autonomous robots establishing automated mining of asteroids and distant planets.

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#92

Post by ars » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

romanovcode wrote: post #86

Aperocky wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if Earth is entirely water. The poor fish can develop mega brains but they would still be more or less stuck under water with no real viable technologies.

I mean, aren't dolphins, whales and orcas already have pretty much close to human-level intelligence?

No? They are very smart, but human level? Not even close.

They are similar to apes in intelligence perhaps. That's not human level.

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#93

Post by canniballectern » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:01 PM UTC

Aperocky wrote: post #79

mordymoop wrote: post #77

Rebooting with the current knowledge base, possibly. Booting from scratch with no fossil fuels, doubtful. I have long suspected that one of the Great Filters is the propensity of a planet to generate fossil energy. You will really only find large quantities of oil in a narrow range of circumstances, depending on specific levels of tectonic activity, duration and abundance of life, sedimentation patterns due to rainfa…

Imagine if Earth is entirely water. The poor fish can develop mega brains but they would still be more or less stuck under water with no real viable technologies.

As land creatures, we haven't explored the underwater tech tree in much detail. If there are fishpeople with mega brains out there somewhere, they might have figured out some stuff that we haven't.

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#94

Post by mdiesel » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:04 PM UTC

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #73

jabl wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup. It's pretty interesting the places that managed their woodlands responsibly over a long time - Japan and England both had pretty sophisticated approaches to not running out of this resource over the long term.

Still in the UK, the moorlands you generally see were once woodlands - apparently that's why they have the distinctive terrain you now see. That's not in the era of written history mind and was for farming rather than iron.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dartmoor#Pre-history

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#95

Post by ajross » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:05 PM UTC

davidhbolton wrote: post #81

I've seen no mention of the myriad other uses we make from petroleum other than transport uses. There's 144 (out of 6000) listed here. https://www.ranken-energy.com/index.php/products-made-from-p... It would be a pretty bleak society without many of these never mind all of the various medicinal stuff such as antiseptics, antihistamines, vitamin capsules, cortisone, glycerin, asparin

Basic hydrocarbons can be pretty easily synthesized, though. Refining them out of oil is cheaper, but not so much cheaper that we'd have to forego this stuff.

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#96

Post by tartoran » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

scotty79 wrote: post #30

grugagag wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes a lot of sense to for people to stop progressing once the resources they need are depleted but that is not true for other species which may thrive when humans are out. And I think other species could obtain the spark intelligence we got too and evolve from there.

You can do only so much with intelligence if there are no metals or fossil fuels on your planet. With all the ingenuity you can't make reasonable amount of chemical elements that don't occur in your environment.

Wait, aren't dolphins an intelligent species? Would they have to make use of metals and fossil fuels to advance their intelligence?

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#97

Post by rebuilder » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:08 PM UTC

mikewarot wrote: post #50

lawrenceyan wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Knowledge steadily accumulates over time. No, it doesn't. Only knowledge that people consider to have value will be retained over time. Many things are lost to history, for example.. nobody knows how to make cobblestone. (Or so I'm told)

>nobody knows how to make cobblestone.

Can you expand on that? I didn't think cobblestones were made? Don't you just pick suitable stones?

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#98

Post by hinkley » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:12 PM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #44

bilbo0s wrote: post #23

Earlier 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…

If you can manage to make mirrors (maybe even using rotating mercury) using wood for your initial heat source you might be able to use solar thermal for metallurgy.

As the article points out, the coal or charcoal in steel production isn't just a heat source, it's also a reduction reaction. Heat speeds up the oxidation reaction, so you need something in the crucible/fire that is capable of scavenging oxygen before it binds with the iron.

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#99

Post by godelski » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:19 PM UTC

mordymoop wrote: post #77

Rebooting with the current knowledge base, possibly. Booting from scratch with no fossil fuels, doubtful. I have long suspected that one of the Great Filters is the propensity of a planet to generate fossil energy. You will really only find large quantities of oil in a narrow range of circumstances, depending on specific levels of tectonic activity, duration and abundance of life, sedimentation patterns due to rainfa…

I think even with our current knowledge no. We still haven't even really figured out how to do the energy sector without fossil fuels (we're pretty darn close though). But outside of that we have a lot of problems. One of the biggest challenges in climate is that the population has been so hyper focused with energy and transportation (because they are the primary drivers, but only 60% of emissions). Modern society needs steel, concrete, plastics, medicines, cooling systems, food, etc. We have major challenges in making many of those things green.

Re: Could we reboot a modern civilization without fossil fuels? (2016)

#100

Post by KineticLensman » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:20 PM UTC

canniballectern wrote: post #93

Aperocky wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if Earth is entirely water. The poor fish can develop mega brains but they would still be more or less stuck under water with no real viable technologies.

As land creatures, we haven't explored the underwater tech tree in much detail. If there are fishpeople with mega brains out there somewhere, they might have figured out some stuff that we haven't.

But not fire, probably, which is a key to many tech trees (e.g. smelting, cooking).