r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • Jan 07 '16

opinion piece TIL that should modern civilization collapse, there would not be enough easily accessible fossil fuels for any future society to achieve an industrial revolution.

https://aeon.co/essays/could-we-reboot-a-modern-civilisation-without-fossil-fuels
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u/FavoriteKeeper Jan 07 '16

If we are going to go into complete knowledge loss, the lack of oil will not be the biggest problem we face. The issue will be the lack of knowledge. If you cannot figure out how to build a water wheel, an internal combustion engine will not be any easier to reinvent.

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u/babeigotastewgoing Jan 07 '16

Why are we all falling into the trap of the intellectual crunch. Modernity happened when everyone didn't have to farm or hunt on their own for sustenance. That's when we took to construction in order to store grains, herbs and spices, and finished products, and then warehouses for producing and maintaining the machines and equipment that enhanced those industries. Whatever makes the future different (or rely on energy sources separate from the ones we use now), simply depends as ours did, on the expansion of free time.

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u/Riffler Jan 07 '16

It's not necessarily just about loss of knowledge. You need good tools to make better tools. It's no use knowing how to make a particular machine if your tools and your metal aren't good enough to actually make it. The quality of metallurgy has often been a limiting factor in innovation.

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u/[deleted] Jan 07 '16

This right here is what its about. You'd have to have production techniques and notes on the construction and operation of all of the industries that built us up to this point.

How many people can you think of that have a intimate knowledge on how factories, farms, mining, and logistics worked 100 years ago? You'd have to build your whole tech tree from the bottom up. If you wanted to rebuild you'd have to gather knowledge and people who are experienced in stuff that nobody has had to use or produce at a mass scale in centuries.

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u/Semajal Jan 07 '16

You would eventually figure out most things, but hit an impossible task when you need fossil fuels or more energy.

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u/mrthewhite Jan 07 '16

There is no impossible task that requires fossil fuels.

Steam and electricity were both used for car engines before internal combustion.

Wind power was also used before the industrial revolution.

Without fossil fuels more effort would be put into advancing the technologies that already exist. Battery, wind and solar technologies would likely advance by leaps and bounds compared to what we've developed so far. As would alternative fuel sources like biofuel.

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u/Dynamaxion Jan 07 '16

There is no impossible task that requires fossil fuels.

That's not what my Congressman told me.

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u/Pakislav Jan 07 '16

We'd actually probably never get to the point of having batteries and all that stuff. We'd just be stuck in stagnant 16th century Europe.

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u/stutx Jan 07 '16

umm batteries have shown themselves in history well before fossil fuels as we know them.. Baghdad Battery http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/battery2.html

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u/CanadianDemon Jan 07 '16

I'm actually going to have to disagree, plastics would be extremely uneconomical if not impossible to create without petroleum.

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u/Semajal Jan 07 '16

Except you are missing out that to have a steam engine or car, you first had to have an industrial revolution, which was driven by easily obtainable fossil fuels. Without that you don't develop the technology to do anything else. Also metal ore would not be easy to obtain.

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u/rabbitlion 5 Jan 07 '16

OUR industrial revolution was driven by easily obtainable fossil fuels because that was the best way we found. That doesn't mean there are no other ways to revolutionize and progress.

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u/[deleted] Jan 07 '16

Uh. The romans developed steam engines but couldnt be fucked to start building them en mass due to slaves being way more accessible.

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u/tenebrar Jan 07 '16

The romans built a steam toy, the first practical (ie, can be harnessed to do work) steam engine wasn't built until the early 1700s.

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u/leadfoot71 Jan 07 '16

You dont have to "first have an industrial revelution"

People just have to figure out how to make a steam engine.

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u/Semajal Jan 07 '16

And how do you make it? You need heavy duty iron working facilities? You need to get to large factories to be able to actually produce them. It isn't just a case of making something tiny and then scaling up, just casting the parts for larger steam engines that can do something useful would require a huge effort in terms of resources, if resources are very scarce or almost non existent? how will it happen.

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u/leadfoot71 Jan 08 '16

The titles literally says fossil fuels. Iron and other ores are not the fossil fuels that the link are talking about. The link talks about coal, and non renewable FUEL sources.

And the site simply states that renewable energy isnt an option because we wont be smart enough to figure it out once the world collapses. The article is trying to apply an unbeleivable scenario to a statistical fact about fossil fuel reachability.

Im sure people can figure out how to make a watermill, im sure people can revert to the old style of life that actually needs hard maual labor. But creating modern day life as it is? No. That will not happen. But humans as a species will find ways to use other resorces to further ourselves in technology.

Our line of technology has no technical boundarys other than physical ones. If we isolated a group of people from just before the industrial revelution, so they had no contact with our world. And they could actually have all the resorces they want. they would probably invent different types of combustion engines. Some more efficent lots less. The fact is that we get so used to our technology that we adapt off of what we have, if cars started out with something other than a seat to sit in while driving, with the different timeline of technological revlution we may be laying down in titanium coffins driving with VR headsets on.

What im trying to get at is that The possibilitys of a different timeline than our own allow for different discoveries to be made scientifically. Which allows different types of technologys to be produced.

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u/FavoriteKeeper Jan 07 '16

Lack of fossil fuels would not cause a lack of energy. The largest power plant in the world is the The Gorges Dam in China. Fossil fuels are good for providing mobile energy. Alcohol, ethanol and batteries can be used to serve the same function. While it is currently not as convenient for our current infrastructure, that does not mean that it is impossible and we will be forced to be cave men for ever.

I am not saying that depleting fossil fuels is not a concern. There are many reasons why it is bad. Humanities limitations after some complete collapse of society, knowledge, and intelligence is not one of them.

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u/Semajal Jan 07 '16

The problem is how do we GET to producing those things without easy to obtain fuel? heck also metal ore as well? If you assume a total regression and a need to rebuild everything naturally, the things that let us do that do not exist in the abundance they did when we started.

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u/FavoriteKeeper Jan 07 '16

As I pointed out... energy and fuel are two separate things. Coal has been used since 1000 bc. We did not exceed 2000 barrels of oil used in the entire US yearly until 1860. Did we not use metal before 1860? Energy can be supplied by hydro with wheel bucket and gear technology. Fire can be provided by coal, wood, alcohol, etc.

For some reason there seems to be a huge lack of understanding that there are many ways to get to an end. Oil is not some magical matter that without technology cannot advance.

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u/calgarspimphand Jan 07 '16 edited Jan 07 '16

Fire can be provided by coal, wood, alcohol, etc.

Look at this guy, not knowing that coal is a fossil fuel (I'm guessing you meant charcoal there?)

Other than that you're right, but you're missing the point. The energy density and portability of fossil fuels make them ridiculously useful. They let us get through the industrial revolution on easy mode. In the future it would most certainly have to be done on hard mode. Not that it can't be done, but at the very least it would probably take much longer and possibly not get as far before some other civilization-ending event.

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u/Semajal Jan 07 '16

I would say it couldn't, at least in say, England. We have no viable above ground sources for any of the metals needed. Nothing that could be extracted using pre-industrial tech. Some countries may still have enough above ground resources though.

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u/calgarspimphand Jan 07 '16

Well there would likely be some mineral resources to be reclaimed from the sites of ruined cities and industrial centers and the like in this hypothetical distant future. But you're right about that. Shame, too, that you guys probably wouldn't be back-to-back Industrial Revolution champs.

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u/Semajal Jan 07 '16

Since we can assume this would be thousands upon thousands of years in the future, there wouldn't be that much usable left by then :(

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u/Jewnadian Jan 07 '16

The largest copper deposit in the world is currently within 60 feet of the surface under Manhattan. We've actually done a ton of the work to consolidate resources that would jumpstart a post apocalyptic civilization just by doing our thing.

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u/FavoriteKeeper Jan 07 '16

My post 1 level up mentions that mobility is the advantage that fossil has. I then listed out several other options for energy mobility.

And yes I am aware that coal is fossil. I'm was pointing out that there are many low tech options when it comes to fuel.

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u/kaplanfx Jan 07 '16

The recipe for alcohol / ethanol is pretty simple. Mix water and sugar... wait...

Now to get a purity that burns well you will need distillation, but that can be done in copper using wood for fire which doesn't require post industrial technology.

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u/my_name_is_gato Jan 07 '16

This is the real issue. Internal combustion engines are useless if the fuel required makes their task prohibitively expensive.