[oneoff786]

> It wouldn't be easy,

It would be multiple orders of magnitude more difficult, and for all practical purposes impossible. You’re drastically underestimating civilization’s historic reliance on coal.

Also, fwiw you don’t get hydro electric power from the ocean. Hydro power is from water falling. Tidal power is a thing but it’s not easily achieved.

[wyattpeak]

Civilisation started heavily relying on coal a few hundred years ago. The Earth was well-dominated by humans by then. It very probably would have taken a lot longer to get to where we are now, but I don't think there was any danger of seventeenth century civilisation falling to dust because there was no coal to be found.

[angstrom]

All coal was produced during a 50 million year window when the earth lacked a decomposition process that could breakdown lignite. Once that evolved the formation of coal around the planet halted abruptly.

There’s a possibility humans might consume that resource dooming all subsequent civilizations to what you point out.

[0x0nyandesu]

It's possible that absent coal, oil, or natural gas we would have leap frogged directly into solar power first with directed mirrors powering a liquid turbine, wind, and eventually conventional solar panels made from silicone.

There's really no reason to use fossil fuels. The fact that we do actually let's us waste a ton of it. If we had to ration it to the bare essentials we'd be able to get away with using only 5% of the energy we currently use. Our current solar energy production in the United States is 2% but that 2% would have been more than enough to power the entire country in the 1920s.

[oneoff786]

Wishful thinking with no basis in reality. If we couldn’t use coal, we would cut down and burn trees unsustainably long before we magically manage to invent renewable energy tech without all the benefits of modern infrastructure.

> There's really no reason to use fossil fuels.

Except for the critical dependence on them in almost every aspect of the economy sure.

> If we had to ration it to the bare essentials we'd be able to get away with using only 5% of the energy we currently use.

And how exactly are supposed to organize society into this perfectly energy constrained system?

[Gravityloss]

Maybe future squid civilizations will mine plastic deposits.

[oneoff786]

There were plenty of dangers. One such threat could be the reliance on charcoal (burning trees) for high heat tasks like smelting metals. If you don’t have coal you’re gonna have a tough time making something like steel in an economically viable fashion. You will, in time, run out of trees to burn. And no, comparisons to modern day don’t count. You need to discount our ability to import tree biomass from other areas against the dependence on fossil fuels that enable that cheap transportation of goods.

[ClumsyPilot]

Would ot be more difficult? We are yet to feel the fill impact of climate change. Its certainly possoble.

By 200 BC, simple wind-powered water pumps were used in China, and windmills with woven-reed blades were grinding grain in Persia and the Middle East.

The first practical electric car was built in 1890

[oneoff786]

Climate change is an existential threat. That doesn’t mean reed blade windmills are a viable substitute for fossil fuels.

It is utter nonsense to think you could have fueled human growth with such technology to a remotely similar scale.

Without fossil fuels you have no cheap transport fuel, no green revolution, no industrial revolution, many many metals, plastic, and probably many more things.

[ClumsyPilot]

I am just pointing out that your measurement as growth might be amazing today, but if, for arguments sake, it is followed by catastrophic collapse, then maybe the schenario without fossil fuels which gives you 'slow and steady' growth could come out ahead at the end of the day.

[oneoff786]

We might face catastrophic collapse, but that doesn’t mean a slow and steady approach would work. Lack of coal just means you burn up less efficient resources to try and replace it. It wouldn’t be enough. Mostly that means trees. There is no slow and steady. It’s still a race to consume. You’ve just taken out the most plentiful and valuable energy resources humanity has been blessed with.

This view does not require any fondness for fossil fuels now, though realistically we are still highly dependent on them.

[ClumsyPilot]

"There is no slow and steady. It’s still a race to consume"

Britain ran out of Trees to consume like a thousand years ago, they have records of forest cover since year 1000 and it's between 15-5% ever since.

The cocept of forest management and 'you don't chop down the last tree' is over a thousand years old.

What is the race to consume after trees?

You have no choice but to harness wind, which can actually cover humanity's energy demand, and to use electricity to create fuels and to refine metals. These technologies are over 100 years old. We would be poorer,it woupd be more difficult, but thos alternative scenario doesn't lead to sudden collapse - atmosphere is a unique resource thats impossible to own.

[spywaregorilla]

(same poster as above, alt account, sorry)

You're just handwaving history without any real knowledge of how resources developed.

The ability to not chop down trees is predicated on having substitute goods available. One of the biggest and most important innovations the world has ever seen was the invention of iron produced from coke (coal). Before coke, you needed charcoal (trees) to produce iron. It was expensive, and the supply of wood was running out. You mention England. Well England lost 66% of its wood supply between 1000AD and 1900AD at a fairly consistent rate, before widespread use of fossil fuels. This INCLUDED needing to IMPORT large quantities of wood from other areas. Its great that they've managed to reforest their local area, but the net consumption of wood on a global scale is undoubtedly still net consuming. And if we never used coal to make iron, then the economic cost of literally everything just got much higher, and more expensive, and more wood intensive. Learning to make iron from coal allowed us to stop using wood as a substitute. To be clear, the industrial revolution is just not economically viable to happen without coal. Society just does not advance. It's not a matter of putting up windmills.

Without fossil fuels you don't get iron, steel, plastic, etc. You know what wind turbines are made of? Steel. Iron. Plastic. Mostly steel. You can't make steel without fossil fuels. Aside from the massive energy requirements, you're going to need coal in there to get carbon into the steel. Unless, yet again, you want to burn trees into charcoal.

Even with today's tech and substitutes, deforestation continues at an alarming rate. Dropping us back to pre industrial revolution tech isn't a good idea to solve that.

[ncmncm]

Ultimately, hydro power depends on oceans supplying abundant water vapor to precipitate over elevated topography. No oceans, no hydro power. You also need topography: no land, no hydro power.

[oneoff786]

Sure, whatever. Tidal energy is still not hydro power, but rather a separate thing.

[ncmncm]

Nobody said tidal power was hydro power. But, for completeness, I will say it now: tidal is also hydro.

It is distinguished from common hydro power by drawing, ultimately, on planetary body kinetic energy rather than insolation.

[oneoff786]

Well that’s not correct. You can say whatever you want but that isn’t the common definition of the term.

[ncmncm]

Language is tricky, and cannot be made less tricky without loss of most of its value.