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Post by Ginnie on Jun 25, 2009 18:03:18 GMT -4
We also wouldn't have the plastics industry, a fair proportion of the drugs and chemicals industries, sophisticated lubricating oils and the like... a very different world indeed. Good point. We'd have good metal tools and utensils that we pass down to our kids instead of cheap plastic ones that need to be replaced all the time. Gee, my faucets are made of plastic. I guess we'd be lubricating with animal fat or something.
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Post by Space Rat on Jun 25, 2009 18:13:39 GMT -4
So no one here thinks nuclear power would have been discovered w/o the technological advances spurred by fossil fuels? I think it might have been delayed but the discovery of radiation and eventually nuclear fission would have happened eventually. I think we're trying to predict the evolution of an incredibly complex system, whose rules we barely understand I suspect the idea of nuclear power would eventually be developed, but whether it would be delayed 100 years or 10,000 years, I don't really know Tree farming would have taken off, competing with farmland for food production and reducing the rate of population increase. I think all kinds of things would have kept population on the slow growth/stagnation trajectory it had been on for millenia. The same general trends would have occurred that actually happened, just at a slower and smaller pace. I think I would agree with that, with the possibility that it might have been much slower.
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 25, 2009 20:51:36 GMT -4
I think that you're missing a rather vital component, the human brain. If wood was costly, someone would have started looking for a new way to produce steam. They would have noticed that steam comes up out of the ground and found ways to tap into it or create it. They would have noticed that water evapourates in the sunshine and worked out ways to use solar heating to create the needed steam. Flight would have been rather different, likely Zepplin type craft with a steam powered engine system. I think that in some areas we might be more advanced, such as with steam engines, geothermal power production, and such things that have been neglected because coal, oil and gas were easier to use. In others we'd be far behind. I'd say that society would likely be about turn of the 20th century, perhaps slightly earlier. I wouldn't have the same thoughts on farming and such, the traction engine was a major boost to farms and the start of machines doing a lot of the work previously done by humans.
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Post by Ginnie on Jun 25, 2009 21:56:14 GMT -4
I think thats a pretty rude thing to say about frenat, PW. I thought Aussies were nice people...
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Post by PhantomWolf on Jun 26, 2009 4:03:18 GMT -4
I think thats a pretty rude thing to say about frenat, PW. I thought Aussies were nice people... And I thought you mexicans were supposed to be too. ;P
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Ian Pearse
Mars
Apollo (and space) enthusiast
Posts: 308
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Post by Ian Pearse on Jun 26, 2009 4:20:37 GMT -4
I think that you're missing a rather vital component, the human brain. If wood was costly, someone would have started looking for a new way to produce steam. They would have noticed that steam comes up out of the ground and found ways to tap into it or create it. They would have noticed that water evapourates in the sunshine and worked out ways to use solar heating to create the needed steam. Flight would have been rather different, likely Zepplin type craft with a steam powered engine system. I think that in some areas we might be more advanced, such as with steam engines, geothermal power production, and such things that have been neglected because coal, oil and gas were easier to use. In others we'd be far behind. I'd say that society would likely be about turn of the 20th century, perhaps slightly earlier. I wouldn't have the same thoughts on farming and such, the traction engine was a major boost to farms and the start of machines doing a lot of the work previously done by humans. I'd say we'd be a lot further back than that. The Industrial Revolution covered an enormous amount of technological change in a very short space of time, largely because energy was plentiful so available to be used e.g. for metalworking. Without a plentiful supply of energy, such techniques would be much more limited. Geothermal is OK if you happen to live in the right place - large areas of the world do not have easy access to geothermal, and it would have to be easy access to get started. Solar is plentiful, but I would submit the techniques for capturing and using it in large enough quantities to be useful at an industrial scale would be beyond pre-industrial revolution technology, so take-up would be severely limited for quite some time. The same limitation - geographical - applies to hydro-power. If you're not near the young or middle-aged part of a river, you won't get it. Knowing the impact that building wooden warships had on the forests of Southern England, it would be interesting to speculate how that would have changed if wood was being used in large quantities for fuel as well. For sure, we would not recognise the world we'd be living in.... if you see what I mean..
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Ian Pearse
Mars
Apollo (and space) enthusiast
Posts: 308
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Post by Ian Pearse on Jun 26, 2009 5:10:09 GMT -4
Digging a bit deeper into the uses and products of crude oil, I find, amongst other things, that a by-product of the cracking process is Hydrogen, which is tapped off, stored and shipped for use in other industrial processes. Similarly, sulphuric acid is generated in bulk from crude oil distillation, and is also used widely in other industrial processes. The lack of fossil fuels may have an even bigger impact than we thought - and, of course, we will lose oil, at least, at some point in the future.
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Post by drewid on Jun 26, 2009 8:13:40 GMT -4
Solar steam isn't really feasable, real steam needs a lot of ingoing energy rather than just evaporation. I'm a huge fan of the steam driven zepplin idea, but a standard steam engine would be too heavy. Now a Sterling engine on the other hand, high revs, and lighter.
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Ian Pearse
Mars
Apollo (and space) enthusiast
Posts: 308
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Post by Ian Pearse on Jun 26, 2009 8:32:56 GMT -4
Solar steam isn't really feasable, real steam needs a lot of ingoing energy rather than just evaporation. I'm a huge fan of the steam driven zepplin idea, but a standard steam engine would be too heavy. Now a Sterling engine on the other hand, high revs, and lighter. The question is, what will you fill your Zeppelin with? Hydrogen is most commonly produced in bulk via fossil fuels and chemical reactions. Helium was found by accident during oil drilling operations - would we know about it if we had no fossil fuels to drill for?
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 26, 2009 11:17:40 GMT -4
Wouldn't a world with no fossil fuels have to be a world with no life in its past either? How would anyone find themselves in such a situation unless they had come from another world? How would a world that had never had any life be habitable in the first place?
Yeah, I know I'm plugging realism into a hyptohetical that wasn't intended to be realistic in the first place.
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Post by drewid on Jun 26, 2009 16:08:56 GMT -4
Solar steam isn't really feasable, real steam needs a lot of ingoing energy rather than just evaporation. I'm a huge fan of the steam driven zepplin idea, but a standard steam engine would be too heavy. Now a Sterling engine on the other hand, high revs, and lighter. The question is, what will you fill your Zeppelin with? Hydrogen is most commonly produced in bulk via fossil fuels and chemical reactions. Helium was found by accident during oil drilling operations - would we know about it if we had no fossil fuels to drill for? Hmm good point. I'd forgotten the Americans had the helium monopoly, aluminium was pretty damn expensive as well. Perhaps a hot air blimp, have to be big though. Shame really, I do like a steam driven airship, though it would mean the end of the horse drawn zepplin.
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Ian Pearse
Mars
Apollo (and space) enthusiast
Posts: 308
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Post by Ian Pearse on Jun 26, 2009 16:20:46 GMT -4
...though it would mean the end of the horse drawn zepplin. Sapristi!
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Post by drewid on Jun 26, 2009 17:33:07 GMT -4
...though it would mean the end of the horse drawn zepplin. Sapristi! Careful Count you'll have us both out of this tree, and stop waving that crow in my face.
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Post by smlbstcbr on Jun 26, 2009 19:40:39 GMT -4
Probably we would be facing either a new ice age or surviving in an enormous desert.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Jun 27, 2009 10:10:04 GMT -4
Probably we would be facing either a new ice age or surviving in an enormous desert. I'm already surviving in an enormous desert. It's called Utah.
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