Could we reboot a modern civilisation without fossil fuels?
aeon.co
aeon.co
So, would a society starting over on a planet stripped of its fossil fuel deposits have the chance to progress through its own Industrial Revolution? Or to phrase it another way, what might have happened if, for whatever reason, the Earth had never acquired its extensive underground deposits of coal and oil in the first place?
The second phrasing here is not actually the same as the first. A society rebuilding a century after some great collapse would have significant advantages over a never-exploited-fossil-fuels-at-all scenario. They'd have access to large quantities of refined metals just from the ruins of the old civilization. Likewise many machines to imitate, even if the old versions were no longer in working condition. Also lots of books remaining, including valuable diagrams even if the language is hard to understand.
I think that I take the opposite stance from you on rebooting society,in that I'm decidedly more bearish. Not only do I not think we'd reassemble on the scraps of yesteryear, but I think it'd be frightening how fast our society could go from normal operation to unrecoverable given the complexity of things we rely on, the physical distances in our supply chains, and the general near-shortages of everything, everywhere, that just-in-time logistics affords us. Plus a lot of people are likely to flee back home before the window to do so shuts, further dismantling the complex web of interdependence.
And I'm thinking on the order of a couple weeks.
Imagine that the world as we know it ends tomorrow. There’s a global catastrophe: a pandemic virus, an asteroid strike, or perhaps a nuclear holocaust. The vast majority of the human race perishes. Our civilisation collapses. The post-apocalyptic survivors find themselves in a devastated world of decaying, deserted cities and roving gangs of bandits looting and taking by force.
Bad as things sound, that’s not the end for humanity. We bounce back. Sooner or later, peace and order emerge again, just as they have time and again through history. Stable communities take shape. They begin the agonising process of rebuilding their technological base from scratch. But here’s the question: how far could such a society rebuild? Is there any chance, for instance, that a post-apocalyptic society could reboot a technological civilisation?
No idea if this article mentions the book, "The Knowledge" by Lewis Dartnell (see above) -- however I would highly recommend the book if anyone is interested on the actual "knowledge" necessary to reboot a civilization. It goes into some depth on the actual chemical/mechanical processes involved in building modern technology, and more-or-less outlines the steps to go from "stone age" (or at least "post-apocalypse") tech back to something like "modern" technology. Really interesting read, that also is illuminating on how modern technology (and thus civilization) is so much more deeply complicated than most probably realize.