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by yodon 2621 days ago
If society collapses even for just one generation, that's the end game. There isn't enough readily available energy available on the surface to restart society. We depend on large amounts of energy and energy requiring infrastructure to get the remaining oil and gas to the surface for consumption. China might have enough accessible coal (I simply don't know) but if there is a societal collapse for a generation or so and if they do have accessible coal today it's likely to be sufficiently valuable in the interregnum that it too will be stripmined away before society is able to try to recover. (Solar, wind, and energy all take far too much education to get running at large scale, and educated individuals are likely to be in equally short supply of society collapses for a generation).

We have to keep society running. We won't have the energetics to get it started again if it stops.

1 comments

We have to keep society running. We won't have the energetics to get it started again if it stops.

That's what I tell myself lying in bed every morning.