[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', ' ')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')o you know of a bio fuel with a high carbon content that will produce 1300 degrees F?

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', ' ')Sorry Monte, this is no longer the case.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', ' ')Making Uranium metal out of ore is basic chemistry, well understood by 1900, 1920 at the latest. Making a pile of natural Uranium get hot to make steam requires high math, but not high technology. The USA did it with math and carbon blocks in 1942, without fossil carbon fuels it might have taken another 100 years, but probably not because a lot of people would be motivated to find an alternative to burning biomass.

[MonteQuest]

From my initial post edit:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f we don't save a significant amount of our fossil fuels (this includes the tar sands and oil shales)for the maintenance of our infrastructure, rather than burn them up trying to meet our energy demand, where will the replacements come from? A Star Trek replicator?

We have trillions of barrels of oil shale and tar sands, you say.

So? We had trillions of barrels of oil and trillions of tons of coal at one time, but we managed to "burn" through half of them in about 150 years.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'F')rom my initial post edit:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')f we don't save a significant amount of our fossil fuels (this includes the tar sands and oil shales)for the maintenance of our infrastructure, rather than burn them up trying to meet our energy demand, where will the replacements come from? A Star Trek replicator?

We have trillions of barrels of oil shale and tar sands, you say.

So? We had trillions of barrels of oil and trillions of tons of coal at one time, but we managed to "burn" through half of them in about 150 years.

[bobcousins]

This thread is very interesting, but surely the pertinent question is what will the world be like after fossil fuels?

Trying to rewrite history based on a linear interpretation of events is nigh impossible, as Tanada has illustrated. While technological innovations are usually the product of necessity, scientific discoveries are as much dependent on accidents or the unpredictable spark of genius as on directed research efforts.

While it can be argued that the development of coked coal kicked off the industrial revolution, there are things that point the other direction. For example, the industrial revolution got under way with water power, not steam power. Steam engines used for pumping in mines were developed into engines that could be used for powering mills, and subsequently, rail transport. But I believe the initial event was the idea of mass production - moving cottage-level production into industrial centres. This is as much to do with social and economic engineering as technology. The key thing here is achieving economies of scale. Having machines made from plentiful iron enabled this.

I would argue that the seeds of the industrial revolution were sown with Newton, and the concept of a clockwork universe. When you have the understanding that the universe is like a machine which has known laws, then you are in a position to industrialise any process, including society. This creates the conditions for an industrial revolution, waiting for the right opportunity, whether that is provided by fossil fuels or biofuels.

Whether we would have got to where we are merely by using biofuels is a moot point, but surely unknowable? Saying that peak wood would have prevented it is too simplistic.

But instead of winding the clock back, we have a different problem. We have a post-fossil world, but we also have a body of scientific knowledge that did not exist before. That science does not necessarily disappear post peak. This means we can direct our efforts - we understand the chemistry of iron smelting for example. We don't have to randomly try burning different rocks until we find what works.

The other key point I would make is that if you use scaffolding to construct a building, after you remove the scaffold the building still stands. If we can construct an alternative energy system, the fact that it was built with fossil fuels does not matter. There is not a problem in principle.

I grant there is a major question about putting it into practice. The issues of cost, scalability and timescale are crucial. We know from Tainter that there is a level at which it simply becomes too expensive to maintain the system. Once you can no longer maintain economies of scale, the system will quickly unravel. The problem we have is that we do not know what the critical level is. Maybe the barrier to further progress will be met at fossil fuels, maybe it is nuclear fission, maybe it will be fusion, maybe something else (mining asteroids?).

We also have something that previous civilisations did not, which is a sophisticated economic system. The Romans did not particularly bother with budgets. If they wanted to know how much money they had, they looked in the vault. If they need more, they sent an army off to conquer somewhere. History shows if governments try to maintain the system, they screw up. If allowed to work, the much maligned market system may be the thing that finds alternatives. There are clearly limits to the market system, the alternatives may be uneconomic or simply not there. But it is an additional tool in our toolbox.

While we are following the previous pattern of unsustainable growth and resource exhaustion of previous civilisations, there are several advantages we have this time around. Whether these prove to be sufficient we will only find out by trying.

[Daryl]

Interesting historical points. Just wanted to add a tidbit. I forget where I read this, but someone once argued that the seeds of Western technical expertise were in Western European monasteries. This was the first time in history that the educated class performed its own manual labor. Thus it was the first time the the best brainpower focussed on how to make manual labor easier.

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Daryl', 'I')nteresting historical points. Just wanted to add a tidbit. I forget where I read this, but someone once argued that the seeds of Western technical expertise were in Western European monasteries. This was the first time in history that the educated class performed its own manual labor. Thus it was the first time the the best brainpower focussed on how to make manual labor easier.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', ' ')Having said all that, there is an intrinsic limit on how much carbon you can harvest from bio-fuel sources and convert into coke to run your blast furnaces, that in and of itself would have slowed development of things like transcontinental rail roads in the USA, and technology today would be far lower than it is. That doesn't mean we wouldn't have technology, or the ability to discover radiation and fission.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', ' ')Having said all that, there is an intrinsic limit on how much carbon you can harvest from bio-fuel sources and convert into coke to run your blast furnaces, that in and of itself would have slowed development of things like transcontinental rail roads in the USA, and technology today would be far lower than it is. That doesn't mean we wouldn't have technology, or the ability to discover radiation and fission.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', ' ')Monte, I don't get it. You admonished people to make this thread about the past so I very carefully did that with a non petro carbon scenario demonstrating how wood growth rates would have slowed, but not stopped, industrialization. You keep pulling things out of the oil rich world and saying $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'b')ut think of how much wood it would have taken to make the steel for the Golden Gate Bridge or an aircraft carrier

[MacG]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', ' ')Will we learn our lesson, or will we try to grow unsustainably once again?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'W')e may have billions of tons of refined metals that we can recycle, but we also have the 6.5 billion people and the infrastructure to support them that requires a huge infusion of energy to maintain. We cannot afford it now with fossil fuels.

[DefiledEngine]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')We also have something that previous civilisations did not, which is a sophisticated economic system. The Romans did not particularly bother with budgets. If they wanted to know how much money they had, they looked in the vault. If they need more, they sent an army off to conquer somewhere. History shows if governments try to maintain the system, they screw up. If allowed to work, the much maligned market system may be the thing that finds alternatives. There are clearly limits to the market system, the alternatives may be uneconomic or simply not there. But it is an additional tool in our toolbox.

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DefiledEngine', 'B')ut isn't it the current economic system that has bought us to where we are? Facing multiple resource depletions? If there had been no political intervention etc. throughout the history of fossil fuels, isn't it likely that we would have used up those resources way faster?
Aren't we sending off armies today to conquer valuable assets?

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou still have failed to tell me what energy you would use to create steel in order to create nuclear.

[Dukat_Reloaded]

But you can use an electric furnace to smelt. In the future when we have enough nuclear power capacity (if?), smelting ore will be no problem.

[MonteQuest]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dukat', 'B')ut you can use an electric furnace to smelt. In the future when we have enough nuclear power capacity (if?), smelting ore will be no problem.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dukat', 'B')ut you can use an electric furnace to smelt. In the future when we have enough nuclear power capacity (if?), smelting ore will be no problem.

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')onte, personal observation not criticism. You seem like a nice guy with a deep concern for the future of the human race, but I think you sorely lack the historical depth to understand how we got where we are. This causes you to see the world only as it has been during your lifetime and limits your abillity to see it existing without the cheap oil which you have experienced. We clawed our way up from campfires and stone tools all the way to water and wind mills without petroleum carbon sources. We now have billions of tons of refined metals sitting all over the landscape made with cheap petro carbon resources, but easily availible for recycle in a low growth/no growth post petro carbon world. You bring up the rule of 70 and the limits of exponential growth, but you can't see that human population growth rate has been declining for 40 years and is now projected to stabilize or slowly decline after 2050 AD.