As for the “fossil fuel trap” that appears to be more sensationalism, the math doesn’t check out on that since 2018. Now that renewable is outright cheaper than fossil fuels economically this means the embodied energy ROI is highly positive (or it could not be outright cheaper unless you believe the equipment manufacturers have a magical source of free energy). I can link sources on this as well. Shortages of lithium and rare earths and copper turn out to be more sensationalism, there are now available on the market, in large quantities, alternatives. (Sodium ion batteries, rare earth free motors, aluminum wiring and motor windings). The alternatives are not quite as good, of course, but they are close in performance.
You’re missing the crux here—say a substantial part of humanity dies and we lose most knowledge and access to the technologies that we use to extract fossil fuels in the ways that we currently do. This creates a “missing stair” for the next group of humans populating the Earth.
Our progrsess:
Burning wood, plants and poo → burning of fossil fuels → nuclear and renewables and whatever.
If fossil fuels cannot be extracted by a society powered by wood (lol):
Burning wood, plants and poo —> (how to use wood-burning machines to extract oil from the beneath the ocean floor ???) —> still burning wood, plants and poo forever.
They would have no way to climb the “energy stair case.”
That’s not even the correct staircase though. It was heating fires → wind/water mills → steam engines → internal combustion engines. But we still use hydroelectric to produce 17% of all electricity used on earth.
In a hypothetical world with zero fossil fuels in concentrated, easily combusted form the tech tree would have been:
wind/water powering factories near rivers → electricity → well positioned factories powered by remote wind/water. Cities would need to be denser and to use electric busses and trolleys and elevators for all the transport. Most long distance transport would have to be by train, where all the major links use overhead electric wiring.
The industrial revolution might have taken longer but the outcome would have been the same, and obviously once that civilization figured out efficient windmills, effective battery chemistries, solar PV, and advanced elements of electrical engineering they would have a growth rate similar to ours.
You’re focused more on technology and less on fuel sources.
Given what goes in to constructing a modern windmill, I don’t see it being viably done with a wood-burning stream engine. Consider all of the materials that go in to make a pencil and what parts of the world they come from, the multiply it by at least 1000.
17 percent of the total electricity is still a lot of energy. You aren’t taking the question seriously when you assume someone would make a pencil the same way in a world without fossil fuels. (And implicitly the same problems with nuclear we have now)
Focusing on the technology let’s you develop a gears level model and predict how industrial and supply chains could adapt to more scarce energy and little in portable forms.
I’m not sure what the 17 percent of total electricity figure is related to.
I’m assuming that building a wind turbine would be a lot more difficult than building a pencil.
Imagine it’s 1783, but all coal, oil, natural gas and rare Earth metals on Earth only exists in the places where they’re now in 2021.
How do you build something like the Deep Water Horizon using 1783 technology?
How do you build a the Smokey Hills Wind Farm using 1783 technology?
How do you build a lithium ion battery using 1783 technology?
How do you then Chicago Pile-1 using 1783 technology?
And, yes, you have to think about the whole supply chain. We use fossil fuel burning machines to move parts around, to log, etc. You can log a bit and move them down rivers, then those trees are gone and what do you do?
The problem is there’s only so much energy concentrated in wood, and it would be the most energy-dense material available. You’d burn it all and then you’d be done. The population would ultimately be limited by the amount of energy we have available to us, and there would be nothing we could to about it.
The percentage of global electricity provided by hydroelectric power.
With 1783 technology you obviously don’t need to build the things you mentioned. Your needs are much smaller, for textiles and to drive machinery. You have a vastly smaller population and cities so wood is sufficient for heating and metal forging, as it was in the real 1783.
You cannot grow as fast but in 1783 you have developed and are using the critical technologies that changed everything, the scientific method and the printing press. The printing press means that as people tinker and find ways to make progress despite the obstacles, many copies of what they learn can be printed. And scientific method let’s you filter to knowledge more likely to be useful.
To get to the Chicago pile will probably take longer without fossil fuel but the intermediate steps are mostly done with hydroelectric power. Wind might be used to pump water backwards to store it for later use. Populations probably have to be smaller, trains used everywhere, fields with tractors probably use long cables or overhead wires, basically an extension cord. It’s more difficult to make steel without much or any coal, maybe charcoal and electric furnaces are used. Maybe more use of aluminum.
You’re missing the crux here—say a substantial part of humanity dies and we lose most knowledge and access to the technologies that we use to extract fossil fuels in the ways that we currently do. This creates a “missing stair” for the next group of humans populating the Earth.
Our progrsess:
Burning wood, plants and poo → burning of fossil fuels → nuclear and renewables and whatever.
If fossil fuels cannot be extracted by a society powered by wood (lol):
Burning wood, plants and poo —> (how to use wood-burning machines to extract oil from the beneath the ocean floor ???) —> still burning wood, plants and poo forever.
They would have no way to climb the “energy stair case.”
(Edits: clarity)
That’s not even the correct staircase though. It was heating fires → wind/water mills → steam engines → internal combustion engines. But we still use hydroelectric to produce 17% of all electricity used on earth.
In a hypothetical world with zero fossil fuels in concentrated, easily combusted form the tech tree would have been:
wind/water powering factories near rivers → electricity → well positioned factories powered by remote wind/water. Cities would need to be denser and to use electric busses and trolleys and elevators for all the transport. Most long distance transport would have to be by train, where all the major links use overhead electric wiring.
The industrial revolution might have taken longer but the outcome would have been the same, and obviously once that civilization figured out efficient windmills, effective battery chemistries, solar PV, and advanced elements of electrical engineering they would have a growth rate similar to ours.
You’re focused more on technology and less on fuel sources.
Given what goes in to constructing a modern windmill, I don’t see it being viably done with a wood-burning stream engine. Consider all of the materials that go in to make a pencil and what parts of the world they come from, the multiply it by at least 1000.
17 percent of the total electricity is still a lot of energy. You aren’t taking the question seriously when you assume someone would make a pencil the same way in a world without fossil fuels. (And implicitly the same problems with nuclear we have now)
Focusing on the technology let’s you develop a gears level model and predict how industrial and supply chains could adapt to more scarce energy and little in portable forms.
I’m not sure what the 17 percent of total electricity figure is related to.
I’m assuming that building a wind turbine would be a lot more difficult than building a pencil.
Imagine it’s 1783, but all coal, oil, natural gas and rare Earth metals on Earth only exists in the places where they’re now in 2021.
How do you build something like the Deep Water Horizon using 1783 technology?
How do you build a the Smokey Hills Wind Farm using 1783 technology?
How do you build a lithium ion battery using 1783 technology?
How do you then Chicago Pile-1 using 1783 technology?
And, yes, you have to think about the whole supply chain. We use fossil fuel burning machines to move parts around, to log, etc. You can log a bit and move them down rivers, then those trees are gone and what do you do?
The problem is there’s only so much energy concentrated in wood, and it would be the most energy-dense material available. You’d burn it all and then you’d be done. The population would ultimately be limited by the amount of energy we have available to us, and there would be nothing we could to about it.
The percentage of global electricity provided by hydroelectric power.
With 1783 technology you obviously don’t need to build the things you mentioned. Your needs are much smaller, for textiles and to drive machinery. You have a vastly smaller population and cities so wood is sufficient for heating and metal forging, as it was in the real 1783.
You cannot grow as fast but in 1783 you have developed and are using the critical technologies that changed everything, the scientific method and the printing press. The printing press means that as people tinker and find ways to make progress despite the obstacles, many copies of what they learn can be printed. And scientific method let’s you filter to knowledge more likely to be useful.
To get to the Chicago pile will probably take longer without fossil fuel but the intermediate steps are mostly done with hydroelectric power. Wind might be used to pump water backwards to store it for later use. Populations probably have to be smaller, trains used everywhere, fields with tractors probably use long cables or overhead wires, basically an extension cord. It’s more difficult to make steel without much or any coal, maybe charcoal and electric furnaces are used. Maybe more use of aluminum.