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We can't. All of the Earth's cheap energy has already been extracted. None of the remaining energy stores can be extracted without modern technology because it
by kstenerud 3y ago
We can't. All of the Earth's cheap energy has already been extracted. None of the remaining energy stores can be extracted without modern technology because it would take far more energy to extract than it produces.
If we lose our ability to produce these extraction and refinement tools (or energy becomes too expensive to extract before we have sufficient alternatives), we'll be locked into a subsistence based existence for hundreds of millions of years until the world reserves of coal and oil are slowly replenished.
No energy = no post-industrial goods (and mass starvation due to lack of fertilizer), and definitely no CPUs.
- nothercastle 3y agoWind is readily available… easy to harvest and renewable. So is water now that we understand energy storage and transport via electricity were at most 100 years from restarting modern civilization.
- kstenerud 3y agoYou can't build and maintain those technologies without a ready supply of energy, and more importantly energy storage and distribution (which is MUCH more expensive and complicated for renewables). And we don't have that yet. Every step of getting renewable energy from its source to the place where it performs work still depends so heavily on fossil fuels that we simply won't be able to survive without it for many decades to come (perhaps even centuries). Losing our ability to extract fossil fuels at scale within the next 50 years would basically spell our doom.