No we’re not. The data is clearly against this theory.
Coal was barely used until 1800s, early industrial revolution machinery used wood (indirectly solar power), charcoal, and river flow (indirectly solar power) instead. Oil didn’t matter much until 1950s.
Amount of solar energy Earth receives annually is 3,850,000 EJ (and if we ever needed more there are ridiculously higher amounts of solar energy available is space). Human primary energy use is 487 EJ, or 0.01% of that. That’s of course only because we conveniently don’t count solar energy used to grow our food, and heat our planet—otherwise it would be fair to say human civilization uses 99.99% solar power (via photosynthesis, heating, water flow, wind etc.) and 0.01% all the other kinds of energy like fossil fuels, nuclear, geothermal etc.
We know fossil fuels were not necessary for industrial civilization because by the time we started using them we were already had industrial civilization. That’s as good a proof as it gets.
EDIT: Also, long before railways, river transport, and long distance sea transport were extremely common. If some place was inaccessible by water, canals were built. In fact rivers and canals, not railroads were the main mode of transport during the Industrial Revolution. Water transport requires ridiculously little energy compared to land transport, and requires no fossil fuels—even steam ships can use wood or charcoal. Oil wasn’t even essential for transport—even as recently as during WW2 most armies relied on horses for carrying stuff around. Fossil fuels are completely irrelevant for explaining why industrial revolution happened. Transport during the Industrial revolutionHorses in World War II
No. Nuclear isn’t (unless you’re going to stretch “solar” to include past supernovae. Geothermal comes from nuclear fission (or possibly residual gravitational energy? Either way, not solar). Given the discovery of hydrocarbons off-Earth, it’s possible that some proportion of oil is non-solar in origin, too, though that would mean it’s ultimately geothermal, and thus a nuclear by-product. Not sure of the status of that speculation currently, though.
And fossil fuels are solar very indirectly—they’re solar from many million years ago; biomass/wind/hydro are solar quite directly—it’s just this or last few year’s solar.
Well, unless I’m totally confused, the uranium/plutonium were generated by solar fusion.
Also, most geothermal heat is generated by radioactive decay (some is residual gravitational binding energy from earth’s formation) , making it indirect nuclear fission power, (and thus ultimately solar power, if you want to be unpleasantly technical.)
Really? Thanks. I thought it mostly was derived from gravitational energy as the earth formed and only a bit of extra nuclear heating. Though I guess it might not make sense that it would still be hot then...
Well, generally, elements heavier than iron only show up when a star goes kablewey, right? so it’s “solar”, but it’s not OUR solar, which was kinda the point, I guess.
Since we’ve already gone down the rabbit hole of extreme pedantry, I should point out that “solar” properly only applies to our own star, sol. The adjective for stars in general is “stellar”. If we ever bring solar panels to the neighborhood of other stars, this is going to be a nasty bit of terminology conflict.
No we’re not. The data is clearly against this theory.
Coal was barely used until 1800s, early industrial revolution machinery used wood (indirectly solar power), charcoal, and river flow (indirectly solar power) instead. Oil didn’t matter much until 1950s.
Amount of solar energy Earth receives annually is 3,850,000 EJ (and if we ever needed more there are ridiculously higher amounts of solar energy available is space). Human primary energy use is 487 EJ, or 0.01% of that. That’s of course only because we conveniently don’t count solar energy used to grow our food, and heat our planet—otherwise it would be fair to say human civilization uses 99.99% solar power (via photosynthesis, heating, water flow, wind etc.) and 0.01% all the other kinds of energy like fossil fuels, nuclear, geothermal etc.
We know fossil fuels were not necessary for industrial civilization because by the time we started using them we were already had industrial civilization. That’s as good a proof as it gets.
History of ferrous metallurgy History of coal mining History of petroleum Solar energy
EDIT: Also, long before railways, river transport, and long distance sea transport were extremely common. If some place was inaccessible by water, canals were built. In fact rivers and canals, not railroads were the main mode of transport during the Industrial Revolution. Water transport requires ridiculously little energy compared to land transport, and requires no fossil fuels—even steam ships can use wood or charcoal. Oil wasn’t even essential for transport—even as recently as during WW2 most armies relied on horses for carrying stuff around. Fossil fuels are completely irrelevant for explaining why industrial revolution happened. Transport during the Industrial revolution Horses in World War II
Wouldn’t any energy stored on earth be “indirectly solar power?”
No. Nuclear isn’t (unless you’re going to stretch “solar” to include past supernovae. Geothermal comes from nuclear fission (or possibly residual gravitational energy? Either way, not solar). Given the discovery of hydrocarbons off-Earth, it’s possible that some proportion of oil is non-solar in origin, too, though that would mean it’s ultimately geothermal, and thus a nuclear by-product. Not sure of the status of that speculation currently, though.
Nuclear/geothermal aren’t.
And fossil fuels are solar very indirectly—they’re solar from many million years ago; biomass/wind/hydro are solar quite directly—it’s just this or last few year’s solar.
Well, unless I’m totally confused, the uranium/plutonium were generated by solar fusion.
Also, most geothermal heat is generated by radioactive decay (some is residual gravitational binding energy from earth’s formation) , making it indirect nuclear fission power, (and thus ultimately solar power, if you want to be unpleasantly technical.)
Really? Thanks. I thought it mostly was derived from gravitational energy as the earth formed and only a bit of extra nuclear heating. Though I guess it might not make sense that it would still be hot then...
Well, generally, elements heavier than iron only show up when a star goes kablewey, right? so it’s “solar”, but it’s not OUR solar, which was kinda the point, I guess.
Since we’ve already gone down the rabbit hole of extreme pedantry, I should point out that “solar” properly only applies to our own star, sol. The adjective for stars in general is “stellar”. If we ever bring solar panels to the neighborhood of other stars, this is going to be a nasty bit of terminology conflict.
Oh, good point about supernovae. I didn’t know that.