Help With Fossil Fuel Debate

[caerodyn]

Hi, I've joined this forum basically for some expert advice, so please bear with me (I'm not sure if I'm even in the right part).

 

I recently started a thread on the BBC History Message Boards (Ancient and Archaeological) entitled 'Human Advancement Without Fossil Fuel' (regretably BBC don't offer a Science forum proper).

 

'While on holiday I was wondering how advanced human technology would have come with out coal, gas and oil. It would seem a mass of eras, inventions, appliances and plain old stuff would be wiped out due to their reliance on fossil fuel at some stage of their conception.

 

Would we be able to reach temperatures high enough to produce steel without coal? Would all the lands be bereft of forests, cut down for fire? Which societies would benefit most from this?'.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbhistory/F2233812?thread=5824381

 

In your opinions, is there any theoretical way humans would have found themselves in this position i.e. a world without, or very little, fossil fuel. Because as someone on the thread pointed out 'World without decomposing carbon-based life is a world without carbon-based life, which sort of takes care of the "human advancement" speculation, I think.'

 

Also please feel free to make your own comments on how you think it would have turned out for us.

 

Cheers

[Dak]

fossil fules form a very long carbon cycle. over millions of years, carbon-based life-forms die in such a way that they don't just rot and release their C back into the atmosphere, but rather sink to the bottom of the ocean, are covered by advancing ice-sheets, etc.

 

then, millions of years later, the oil/coal/gas/whatever reaches a subduction zone as the tectonic plate shifts along, pushing the C into the magma. eventually, it is released back into the atmosphere by volcainoes.

 

I suppose if tectonic movement was faster then you could have it so that the decomposing-C-based life doesn't have time to turn into oil/coal/gas before it reaches a subduction zone. maybe.

 

[acr=I am not a geologist]IANAG[/acr]

[SkepticLance]

Fossil fuels are useful, and sped human progress. However, they are not essential by any means. Before fossil fuels, lots of other fuels were used. Primarily wood.

 

However, you can make fuel out of biomass by a number of routes, and some are very low tech. Producer gas drove cars way back in WWI. You can make liquid and gaseous fuels by anaerobic pyrolysis of wood waste or other biomass. You can make methane by tapping the results of anaerobic decomposition in rubbish dumps, as well as using the same process in a controlled manner in a fermenter. You can make ethanol or methanol as fuel. You can extract oils from plants.

 

Fossil fuels will run out in due course and be replaced. They were not really needed to begin with.

[npts2020]

The French have had a tungsten furnace heated by solar power for many years now, so being hot enough is not a problem. How efficiently it does that is another matter with which I am not familiar. Using fossil fuels is totally unnecessary but it is a cheap (when carbon generation is not taken into account) and convenient way of getting energy.