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Industrial civilization is definitely a one shot deal. All the surface metal deposits are gone. You need massive industrial infrastructure to access the remaini

Industrial civilization is definitely a one shot deal. All the surface metal deposits are gone. You need massive industrial infrastructure to access the remaining ores. You couldn't even progress to the iron or bronze age after a reboot.

mobiplayer 12y ago
Well, depends on how you look at it. All (most of?) those metals are somewhere, aren't they? Actually there are many of those metals on the surface, there's not even need to dig for them.
- codeulike 12y ago
  Once you've got the metal, how are you going to heat it up so that you can re-shape it?
  - mobiplayer 12y ago
    That's an interesting question, however it is not what I was replying to. I'm not sure your question should be pointed at me :) In any case here's my quick answer: I hope they come off as Lego bricks.
  - eropple 12y ago
    Why not wood? You can easily build wood fires hot enough to work refined aluminum (all those cans, good for something!), copper (rip out the plumbing and wires en masse, it won't be pure but it'll be close enough), tin, and zinc; with copper, tin, and zinc those you can create bronze and brass. Iron would be out of the question with simply a wood fire, but--assuming other knowledge was intact, of course--you could build a forced-draft charcoal burner which can easily get hot enough to melt down some forms of iron. When I started thinking about this problem I was expecting it to be a tough one, but I think it's achievable.
    - abakker 12y ago
      Iron and Steel can be worked on a charcoal/wood fire. Maybe it won't be easy, but the scale of malleability is basically linear with temperature. Every 100 degrees and it gets a bit softer. Metallurgically, this won't necessarily yield the best parts if we can't reach critical temperatures - 1900°F, but even then, there are plenty of forgiving alloys out there, and plenty of metal that can be re-worked without melting it down. The bigger difficulty in my mind is having all the alloys identified. It is pretty business even with good modern tools.
    - fleitz 12y ago
      Take your wood fire, add some aluminium you scavenged from an aircraft, then add some rust. Voila, 2500 C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite
      - jnbiche 12y ago
        This should be a top-level comment. There are probably other similarly low-tech ideas that could be used to bootstrap a civilization.
  - panglott 12y ago
    The problem with wood as a fuel is that any densifying human culture can burn it faster than it grows. Industrial uses compete with household uses for cooking fuel and heating. Europe in the 14th to 16th centuries saw massive deforestation in England, Germany, and elsewhere, and the state had to reserve stands of large timber as a military resource for shipbuilding. This was a significant concern in the early Tudor and Elizabethan era, for example, and the Black Forest reached its smallest extent during this time also, IIRC. Wood for fuel came from intensive coppice stands, and significant wood was imported as well. As the article says: "Wartime gasifier cars could achieve about 1.5 miles per kilogram [of wood]." Comparing the time it takes to grow a kg of wood versus the value of moving a car only 1.5 miles illustrates the problem pretty nicely. Wood is not a sustainable fuel for an industrial civilization, at anything like current rates of consumption.
ginko 12y ago
>All the surface metal deposits are gone. Well, they're not so much gone as converted into various structures all over the globe. I see no reason why later civilizations couldn't mine the remains of former cities.
- XorNot 12y ago
  Pretty much this - mining would be done on old landfill sites and cities, at least for metals. Fossil fuels are a different type of problem - we're not going to get all that carbon back. Conversely maybe a reboot civilization would develop differently - forests to solar thermal to PV and batteries. It would be slower, but certainly possible.
  - codeulike 12y ago
    How are you going to do any metalwork with your scavenged metal? Heat it up with a big mirror? Its very very hard without high energy density fuel. The article suggests charcoal (did you read the article?) but thats problematic too.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      Just because it would be a slower development path doesn't mean it's impossible. It would be slower, but any given civilization would have only a few viable options for development - so yes, I think you'd find a civilization which values glass and mirrors and polishing technology to get the heat necessary for metal working.
      - tinco 12y ago
        I don't think a civilization built on a shit load of aluminium scrap is going to develop very slowly. Don't forget aluminium is a wonder metal that's only been around for like a hundred years. All really important metals can be melted at temperatures that can easily be reached with a well built furnace and natural fuel like wood.
legulere 12y ago
Metals don't just vanish, they're still here in products that can be recycled.
- mariusz79 12y ago
  That depends how long would it take for another civilization to arise from the ashes of the current one. Metals don't just vanish but most of them are chemically active and will in time rust, disintegrate, get absorbed by organics and pretty much vanish.
bitL 12y ago
In other words, if there ever were a nuclear war affecting the whole world, the generations after will be stuck with whatever remains they got forever, baring some unexpected easy energy discovery or a resource-rich asteroid hitting the planet without wiping out the life.
fleitz 12y ago
This is so far from the truth that it's not even funny. There are tonnes of surface metal deposits, it's just you'd get shot for opening a mine there because it's in the middle of the national park. Also, what do you call a 'garbage dump' other than a surface deposit rich in metals? All of the metals we've ever mined are on the surface. We didn't put them back down into the mine... (or at least when we did it's the open pit variety)
- bitL 12y ago
  How do you mine rust? Or thin surfaces of precious metals on electronics without the availability of chemicals which take a lot of fossil fuels to manufacture?

mobiplayer 12y ago

Well, depends on how you look at it. All (most of?) those metals are somewhere, aren't they? Actually there are many of those metals on the surface, there's not even need to dig for them.

codeulike 12y ago
Once you've got the metal, how are you going to heat it up so that you can re-shape it?
- mobiplayer 12y ago
  That's an interesting question, however it is not what I was replying to. I'm not sure your question should be pointed at me :) In any case here's my quick answer: I hope they come off as Lego bricks.
- eropple 12y ago
  Why not wood? You can easily build wood fires hot enough to work refined aluminum (all those cans, good for something!), copper (rip out the plumbing and wires en masse, it won't be pure but it'll be close enough), tin, and zinc; with copper, tin, and zinc those you can create bronze and brass. Iron would be out of the question with simply a wood fire, but--assuming other knowledge was intact, of course--you could build a forced-draft charcoal burner which can easily get hot enough to melt down some forms of iron. When I started thinking about this problem I was expecting it to be a tough one, but I think it's achievable.
  - abakker 12y ago
    Iron and Steel can be worked on a charcoal/wood fire. Maybe it won't be easy, but the scale of malleability is basically linear with temperature. Every 100 degrees and it gets a bit softer. Metallurgically, this won't necessarily yield the best parts if we can't reach critical temperatures - 1900°F, but even then, there are plenty of forgiving alloys out there, and plenty of metal that can be re-worked without melting it down. The bigger difficulty in my mind is having all the alloys identified. It is pretty business even with good modern tools.
  - fleitz 12y ago
    Take your wood fire, add some aluminium you scavenged from an aircraft, then add some rust. Voila, 2500 C. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite
    - jnbiche 12y ago
      This should be a top-level comment. There are probably other similarly low-tech ideas that could be used to bootstrap a civilization.
- panglott 12y ago
  The problem with wood as a fuel is that any densifying human culture can burn it faster than it grows. Industrial uses compete with household uses for cooking fuel and heating. Europe in the 14th to 16th centuries saw massive deforestation in England, Germany, and elsewhere, and the state had to reserve stands of large timber as a military resource for shipbuilding. This was a significant concern in the early Tudor and Elizabethan era, for example, and the Black Forest reached its smallest extent during this time also, IIRC. Wood for fuel came from intensive coppice stands, and significant wood was imported as well. As the article says: "Wartime gasifier cars could achieve about 1.5 miles per kilogram [of wood]." Comparing the time it takes to grow a kg of wood versus the value of moving a car only 1.5 miles illustrates the problem pretty nicely. Wood is not a sustainable fuel for an industrial civilization, at anything like current rates of consumption.

ginko 12y ago

>All the surface metal deposits are gone. Well, they're not so much gone as converted into various structures all over the globe. I see no reason why later civilizations couldn't mine the remains of former cities.

XorNot 12y ago
Pretty much this - mining would be done on old landfill sites and cities, at least for metals. Fossil fuels are a different type of problem - we're not going to get all that carbon back. Conversely maybe a reboot civilization would develop differently - forests to solar thermal to PV and batteries. It would be slower, but certainly possible.
- codeulike 12y ago
  How are you going to do any metalwork with your scavenged metal? Heat it up with a big mirror? Its very very hard without high energy density fuel. The article suggests charcoal (did you read the article?) but thats problematic too.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Just because it would be a slower development path doesn't mean it's impossible. It would be slower, but any given civilization would have only a few viable options for development - so yes, I think you'd find a civilization which values glass and mirrors and polishing technology to get the heat necessary for metal working.
    - tinco 12y ago
      I don't think a civilization built on a shit load of aluminium scrap is going to develop very slowly. Don't forget aluminium is a wonder metal that's only been around for like a hundred years. All really important metals can be melted at temperatures that can easily be reached with a well built furnace and natural fuel like wood.

legulere 12y ago

Metals don't just vanish, they're still here in products that can be recycled.

mariusz79 12y ago
That depends how long would it take for another civilization to arise from the ashes of the current one. Metals don't just vanish but most of them are chemically active and will in time rust, disintegrate, get absorbed by organics and pretty much vanish.

bitL 12y ago

In other words, if there ever were a nuclear war affecting the whole world, the generations after will be stuck with whatever remains they got forever, baring some unexpected easy energy discovery or a resource-rich asteroid hitting the planet without wiping out the life.

fleitz 12y ago

This is so far from the truth that it's not even funny. There are tonnes of surface metal deposits, it's just you'd get shot for opening a mine there because it's in the middle of the national park. Also, what do you call a 'garbage dump' other than a surface deposit rich in metals? All of the metals we've ever mined are on the surface. We didn't put them back down into the mine... (or at least when we did it's the open pit variety)

bitL 12y ago
How do you mine rust? Or thin surfaces of precious metals on electronics without the availability of chemicals which take a lot of fossil fuels to manufacture?