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I struggle to think of a planet that wouldn't have the necessary ingredients for an industrial revolution. I don't think you need fossil fuels at all; on Earth,

I struggle to think of a planet that wouldn't have the necessary ingredients for an industrial revolution. I don't think you need fossil fuels at all; on Earth, even without fossil fuels, we probably could have eventually gone from biofuels to wind/hydro power to solar/nuclear (these requiring a lot of energy for the refinement/processing of raw resources). It would have been a slow and gradual process, but if this process took about ~150 years with fossil fuels, I bet it would have only taken something like 500 years without them - a tiny blip in time, really. I think any planet capable of hosting carbon-based life would be able to at least produce wind energy, and probably most (assuming a rocky planet with liquid water and an atmosphere containing oxygen) would be able to develop all the energy types I mentioned. Solar and nuclear might be relatively less feasible if certain elements aren't common on that planet, and battery storage might also suffer from lack of resources. But wind and hydro alone are probably sufficient to eventually be able to develop controlled fusion down the line and have most energy-resource issues obviated. Even if you imagine some exotic form of life not like ours at all, on a planet that doesn't necessarily have water or an atmosphere, the life has to be able to derive energy from some kind of external source, whether it's by facilitating some chemical reaction like our deep sea micro-organisms or photosynthesis. Most likely that energy can be harvested in an automated fashion, and it's probably relatively abundant if life is able to evolve to the point of intelligence. For it to be completely inaccessible due to lack of resources, IMO you'd have to get into truly strange scenarios like intelligent life somehow developing in a nebula or the atmosphere of a gas giant.

Loughla 3y ago
I mean, I disagree about fossil fuels. I don't believe we make the necessary advancements without incredibly energy dense fuel. Everything you listed required a base of energy dense fuels for the process in some fashion. It's very hand wavy to say. Well we would've just figured it out. I'm not convinced? So if we were the first large life to form on the planet, and there weren't any fossil fuels, I think we'd be screwed. I think we would've stalled until something burned us as fuel.
- opportune 3y ago
  > Everything you listed required a base of energy dense fuels for the process in some fashion What about wood, or more "advanced" biofuels (idk, some kind of highly productive grass or a refined algae product), prevents us from developing wind and hydro power? Those were both developed before fossil fuels were widely used anyway. They produced mechanical power instead of electrical, but only because electricity was not understood yet. The more energy you have, the easier it is to scale energy production up, but you have the resources required to initiate that process with just biofuels. And once you have a base of wind and hydro energy, that allows you to begin the feedback loop of using that energy to assist in constructing more power generation in a virtuous cycle. edit: I'll also add that the industrial revolution came about after there had already been notable advances in mechanization and manufacturing - the introduction of fossil fuels quite literally threw gas on the fire, but people had started developing increasingly sophisticated machinery like the cotton gin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin) and mechanically-powered loom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Loom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Loom) before fossil fuels started being widely used. And indeed, many of these were hydro-powered.
  - Jedd 3y ago
    It's a bit more complicated than this, but one shortcoming is that wood simply doesn't burn hot enough to smelt steel (1100 or so?). Coal was, for us, effectively an essential step. Advances you mention in your third paragraph don't include the jumps in precision that were predicated on this capability, and indeed necessary for the next steps. There may of course be some civilisations out there that managed what you're describing - it's a big ol' universe after all - but my gut feel is mitochondria is probably the great filter, rather than an abundance of energy-dense naturally occurring fuel. This link pops up regularly on HN. It's a spectacularly good read, highly relevant here, in terms of the necessary set of converging prerequisites for an industrial revolution: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...
    - andrewflnr 3y ago
IshKebab 3y ago
It's probably not about the resources, but more about the temperature, atmosphere, pressure, etc. I mean, look at the other planets in our solar system. It's clearly at least very unlikely that a planet can support life.
deadbabe 3y ago
Imagine dolphins become incredibly intelligent and sapient, how would they ever have an Industrial Revolution?
- larkost 3y ago
  Under water I always imagine that a biological revolution would be more likely, and technologies that evolve (so to speak) out of organisms that make deposits like coral. So you would have a "limestone age", followed by something harder. At some point metals would come into the picture, but it would likely look very different than our "tech tree"/

Loughla 3y ago

I mean, I disagree about fossil fuels. I don't believe we make the necessary advancements without incredibly energy dense fuel. Everything you listed required a base of energy dense fuels for the process in some fashion. It's very hand wavy to say. Well we would've just figured it out. I'm not convinced? So if we were the first large life to form on the planet, and there weren't any fossil fuels, I think we'd be screwed. I think we would've stalled until something burned us as fuel.

opportune 3y ago
> Everything you listed required a base of energy dense fuels for the process in some fashion What about wood, or more "advanced" biofuels (idk, some kind of highly productive grass or a refined algae product), prevents us from developing wind and hydro power? Those were both developed before fossil fuels were widely used anyway. They produced mechanical power instead of electrical, but only because electricity was not understood yet. The more energy you have, the easier it is to scale energy production up, but you have the resources required to initiate that process with just biofuels. And once you have a base of wind and hydro energy, that allows you to begin the feedback loop of using that energy to assist in constructing more power generation in a virtuous cycle. edit: I'll also add that the industrial revolution came about after there had already been notable advances in mechanization and manufacturing - the introduction of fossil fuels quite literally threw gas on the fire, but people had started developing increasingly sophisticated machinery like the cotton gin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin) and mechanically-powered loom (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Loom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancashire_Loom) before fossil fuels started being widely used. And indeed, many of these were hydro-powered.
- Jedd 3y ago
  It's a bit more complicated than this, but one shortcoming is that wood simply doesn't burn hot enough to smelt steel (1100 or so?). Coal was, for us, effectively an essential step. Advances you mention in your third paragraph don't include the jumps in precision that were predicated on this capability, and indeed necessary for the next steps. There may of course be some civilisations out there that managed what you're describing - it's a big ol' universe after all - but my gut feel is mitochondria is probably the great filter, rather than an abundance of energy-dense naturally occurring fuel. This link pops up regularly on HN. It's a spectacularly good read, highly relevant here, in terms of the necessary set of converging prerequisites for an industrial revolution: https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-industrial-revolution/ https://acoup.blog/2022/08/26/collections-why-no-roman-indus...
  - andrewflnr 3y ago

IshKebab 3y ago

It's probably not about the resources, but more about the temperature, atmosphere, pressure, etc. I mean, look at the other planets in our solar system. It's clearly at least very unlikely that a planet can support life.

deadbabe 3y ago

Imagine dolphins become incredibly intelligent and sapient, how would they ever have an Industrial Revolution?

larkost 3y ago
Under water I always imagine that a biological revolution would be more likely, and technologies that evolve (so to speak) out of organisms that make deposits like coral. So you would have a "limestone age", followed by something harder. At some point metals would come into the picture, but it would likely look very different than our "tech tree"/