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Comment by angstrom | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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?

Maybe future squid civilizations will mine plastic deposits.

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