… the Earth had no oil?
Firstly, would we have developed much of an advanced civilisation?
Secondly, what would have done differently to get to where we are now? (in terms of power generation, transports, etc)
Spiny Norman said:
… the Earth had no oil?
Firstly, would we have developed much of an advanced civilisation?
Secondly, what would have done differently to get to where we are now? (in terms of power generation, transports, etc)
Is coal allowed? Oil has not been around all that long and we did fine without it for the majority of our history. I imagine a world without oil to be more centralised, ie no commuting from the burbs, lots of rail and a Victorian Steam Punk vibe. Farming would be smaller without the ability to cheaply run huge machinery which can only return on economies of scale.
We would have got as far as the industrial revolution as normal, and the just ended up with lots more steam engines and lots less forests by now.
And we would all be driving Stanley Steamers.
Possibly even more advance because the need for more power was easily satisfied by the abundance of oil so there was no need to go beyond that. Just like I have heard it said that china with all its advances in the past was basically constrained because they never invented glass due to them being quite happy with porcelain as a water tight vessel.
Steam would have been the starting point but other technologies would have been competing for the next thing and there are many options discussed today as possible renewable energy sources that would have been researched a lot sooner and the best and brightest of them would have taken over from steam and then from then on, who knows…
[I keep forgetting that this site doesn’t like square brackets]
furious said:
- Firstly, would we have developed much of an advanced civilisation?
Possibly even more advance because the need for more power was easily satisfied by the abundance of oil so there was no need to go beyond that. Just like I have heard it said that china with all its advances in the past was basically constrained because they never invented glass due to them being quite happy with porcelain as a water tight vessel.
- Secondly, what would have done differently to get to where we are now?
Steam would have been the starting point but other technologies would have been competing for the next thing and there are many options discussed today as possible renewable energy sources that would have been researched a lot sooner and the best and brightest of them would have taken over from steam and then from then on, who knows…
Yeah in many ways we are lazy because we have had oil.
Spiny Norman said:
… the Earth had no oil?
Firstly, would we have developed much of an advanced civilisation?
Secondly, what would have done differently to get to where we are now? (in terms of power generation, transports, etc)
probably the most likely scenario in order for this to happen would be if there were no geological circumstances where organic material could accumulate (it’s not that big of a stretch really)… but if it were the case I’d suggest we would have developed bio-fuels in place of petroleum.
furious said:
[I keep forgetting that this site doesn’t like square brackets]
It just likes to disappear things.
Stealth said:
We would have got as far as the industrial revolution as normal, and the just ended up with lots more steam engines and lots less forests by now.And we would all be driving Stanley Steamers.
Other than for the tiny minority who were both rich and wanted to travel, life would have been hardly any different up to the 1950s. You’d still have the movement of people to the cities, and the spread of the suburbs, which was largely driven by rail transport.
From the 1950s I expect electric cars would have become common. Possibly freeways would have been electrified for use by trucks and coaches, or maybe coal powered vehicles would have become sufficiently advanced that there was no push to replace them with electric.
The only big challenge I see would be a safe and reliable power source for aircraft, but I expect they would have found a way round that as well.
Initally I thought “Rocket Fuel” but then maybe ethanol would have been the first “go to” in the case of aircraft…
The Rev Dodgson said:
Stealth said:
We would have got as far as the industrial revolution as normal, and the just ended up with lots more steam engines and lots less forests by now.And we would all be driving Stanley Steamers.
Other than for the tiny minority who were both rich and wanted to travel, life would have been hardly any different up to the 1950s. You’d still have the movement of people to the cities, and the spread of the suburbs, which was largely driven by rail transport.
From the 1950s I expect electric cars would have become common. Possibly freeways would have been electrified for use by trucks and coaches, or maybe coal powered vehicles would have become sufficiently advanced that there was no push to replace them with electric.
The only big challenge I see would be a safe and reliable power source for aircraft, but I expect they would have found a way round that as well.
if you allow coal, then liquefaction is the obvious result…
The Rev Dodgson said:
.
Stealth said:
We would have got as far as the industrial revolution as normal, and the just ended up with lots more steam engines and lots less forests by now.And we would all be driving Stanley Steamers.
Other than for the tiny minority who were both rich and wanted to travel, life would have been hardly any different up to the 1950s. You’d still have the movement of people to the cities, and the spread of the suburbs, which was largely driven by rail transport.
From the 1950s I expect electric cars would have become common. Possibly freeways would have been electrified for use by trucks and coaches, or maybe coal powered vehicles would have become sufficiently advanced that there was no push to replace them with electric.
The only big challenge I see would be a safe and reliable power source for aircraft, but I expect they would have found a way round that as well.
Like making oil from coal.
points —> diddly did it first, miss!
If you look at it from the perspective of not knowing about fuel oils you wouldn’t first start thinking about how to turn coal or plant matter into a fuel oil. Your first thought would be on what currently exists and burns quite well and then tweak it…
furious said:
If you look at it from the perspective of not knowing about fuel oils you wouldn’t first start thinking about how to turn coal or plant matter into a fuel oil. Your first thought would be on what currently exists and burns quite well and then tweak it…
hence my comment on bio-fuels
I don’t really see a lack of geologically hosted petroleum a show stopper to development of the internal combustion engine
furious said:
.
If you look at it from the perspective of not knowing about fuel oils you wouldn’t first start thinking about how to turn coal or plant matter into a fuel oil. Your first thought would be on what currently exists and burns quite well and then tweak it…
Not entirely true. Gasification of coal was done before we started to use oil for internal combustion engines. Gasification is the first stage in the liquification process. Maybe pressure-liquification for storage and then onwards.
Would we have cheap plastics? I have a plastic appearing shampoo bottle, on the label it says it was made from corn starch so maybe not but wondering about cost.
is the assumption no geologically hosted hydrocarbons?
because that then excludes natural gas as well…
bakelite was the first plastic, no oil in that but a product of coal tar.
Skunkworks said:
Would we have cheap plastics? I have a plastic appearing shampoo bottle, on the label it says it was made from corn starch so maybe not but wondering about cost.
probably not… many of the plastics and the paraffins as well as the lubricant greases would have to be generated from synthetic sources, which of course would affect the economics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_liquefaction
Is it actually possible to have good supplies of coal without also having oil?
Maybe ancient aliens came and took all the oil and left behid the coal…
coal
we’ve got about 2000 years worth of coal in Australia, QLD is practically made from the stuff
Nuclear powered container ships.
Glance Fleeting said:
Nuclear powered container ships.
There have been a few of them.
Glance Fleeting said:
Nuclear powered container ships.
The Russians tried that. Not much use for an expensive cargo ship that can run for years without refuelling and with onerous safety precautions. Easier and cheaper to fuel with oil from any one of its frequent dockings.
> Where would we be if … the Earth had no oil? Firstly, would we have developed much of an advanced civilisation? Secondly, what would have done differently to get to where we are now? (in terms of power generation, transports, etc)
Nearly everything that can be done with mineral oil can be done with either coal or bio-oil, though not necessarily at the same price. Keep in mind that natural gas is a relatively recent product, we first had it piped to our houses in Australia in about 1965. What I like most about natural gas is its unrivalled oxygen-free hydrogen:carbon ratio, which makes it a great industrial source of hydrogen.
For liquid fuel, bio-oils are probably most suitable. Canola, palm oil, blended vegetable oil.
For plastics, nylons were first made from coal. Bioplasics include starch-based plastics, cellulose-based plastics, some aliphatic polyesters, Polyamide 11, and bio-derived polyethylene. Some bacteria have genes that allow them to make polyester.
For synthetics such as aniline dyes, aniline was originally made from phenol from coal tar. Only later did oil-based production take over.
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that coal (and coal derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the coal runs out).
dv said:
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that coal (and coal derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the coal runs out).
Indeed. And before the widespread use of petroleum in the economy, oil was sourced from natural resources like whale oil.
dv said:
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that coal (and coal derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the coal runs out).
As I said.. I think oil allowed us to be lazy.
Witty Rejoinder said:
dv said:
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that coal (and coal derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the coal runs out).
Indeed. And before the widespread use of petroleum in the economy, oil was sourced from natural resources like whale oil.
Why I don’t trust the Japanese for their science behind the whale harvest.
The finest horological oils were synthesised from whale oil.
I only run my vehicle on endangered species
wookiemeister said:
I only run my vehicle on endangered species
Most of us ‘others’ rely upon extinct species.
dv said:
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that coal (and coal derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the coal runs out).
Sure.
Okay same scenario but now without coal.
Spiny Norman said:
dv said:
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that coal (and coal derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the coal runs out).
Sure.
Okay same scenario but now without coal.
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that shale oil (and shale oil derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the shale oil runs out).
Witty Rejoinder said:
dv said:
We already had an advanced civilisation before petroleum started to play a big role, and it is easy to imagine that coal (and coal derived hydrocarbons) would have taken us anywhere we needed to go (as indeed it one day might, given that it seems we will seriously deplete the oil long before the coal runs out).
Indeed. And before the widespread use of petroleum in the economy, oil was sourced from natural resources like whale oil.
Whale oil beef hooked.
Spiny Norman said:
Okay same scenario but now without coal.
We would have been stuck with 17th century technology for a while with the use of water wheels and
windmills but I imagine with the take-up of hydroelectric power we still would have advanced to a society dependent on electricity. I imagine with ongoing technological improvement we would have invented solar power more rapidly than we did with access to fossil fuels.
oh look. a burning bush.
either god is talking to me or i am going to discover a gas field. a really really big one.
Witty Rejoinder said:
Spiny Norman said:Okay same scenario but now without coal.
We would have been stuck with 17th century technology for a while with the use of water wheels and
windmills but I imagine with the take-up of hydroelectric power we still would have advanced to a society dependent on electricity. I imagine with ongoing technological improvement we would have invented solar power more rapidly than we did with access to fossil fuels.
as I said.. we allowed oil to keep us lazy.
sarahs mum said:
oh look. a burning bush.either god is talking to me or i am going to discover a gas field. a really really big one.
http://bookshop.blackwell.co.uk/jsp/id/Ghost_Detective/9781926696201