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How would you be able to make glass without fossil fuels? We've already deforested the planet... you don't get to burn biomass. A modern, technological civili

How would you be able to make glass without fossil fuels? We've already deforested the planet... you don't get to burn biomass. A modern, technological civilization gets one bite at the apple, no more (unless they can manage to make it to another planet, where they have all the starting blocks to work with). You don't even get to salvage much from the previous civilization, since all but the crudest products go stale pretty quickly.

Balgair 12y ago
Oh, for a post-apocalyptic world? There, of course, would be challenges to 're-do' the world to where we are now. Hopefully it never comes to that, but those people will probably be a lot different than we are now. Heck, we are a lot different then our grandparents are in terms of tech and what we think is obvious as a tech. Also, I dont think most of the material will be lost. Take aluminum. It's nearly un'rust'able and really doesn't degrade over the time spans we are talking about. Making it from scratch is not obvious, you need electrolysis [1] and some other not terribly clear ideas. That said, you can do it in a garage; you don't need a foundry. And those ideas are likely to survive the end of the world, seeing as aluminum is so useful. Overall, ideas are like genetics, once you get one great working thing it's hard to loose that mechanism. Give yourself more credit, you are smarter than you think. [1]http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/extraction/aluminium.html http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/extraction/aluminium.ht...
tsotha 12y ago
We have not "deforested the planet". What are you running on about? You can make glass without fossil fuels. If you have energy you can make fossil fuels from air. The key part to replacing fossil fuels is having the energy. Hopefully cheap and in great supply.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > We have not "deforested the planet". What are you running on about? Take a look at the before and after pictures. Forest covered half of North America. It's all gone. Prior to that, covered most of Europe, the British Isles. We've deforested it. It takes something on the order a million years for that to recover, supposing it does.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  > We have not "deforested the planet". What are you running on about? Take a look at the before and after pictures. Forest covered half of North America. It's all gone. Prior to that, covered most of Europe, the British Isles. We've deforested it. It takes something on the order a million years for that to recover, supposing it does. > If you have energy you can make fossil fuels from air. We're talking about a scenario where they won't have the energy to do that. It's a bootstrapping problem. Everyone commenting here is saying "but that's ok, we'll have all we need to make this fancy stuff"... When the problem itself is posed as "what if we no longer have all we need to make fancy stuff".
  - tsotha 12y ago
    >Take a look at the before and after pictures. Forest covered half of North America. It's all gone. Pictures of North America? What pictures? North America is more heavily forested than it was 100 years ago. >We're talking about a scenario where they won't have the energy to do that. It's a bootstrapping problem. We can do it with nuclear power. Maybe even renewables, depending on what happens with battery technology. >When the problem itself is posed as "what if we no longer have all we need to make fancy stuff" That will never happen. There are options. It's just a question of what makes the most sense.
visarga 12y ago
We could also cultivate algae. There is the "open-pond" system and the "vertical growth" system where water is cycled into an installation made of transparent bags. Algae take nutrients from the water (and light from the sun) to develop and are then filtered out as they grow. They turn the algae into biofuel (algal oil). http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/algae-biodiesel3.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science... and http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/10/13/where-are-we-with-algae-biofuels/ http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/10/13/where-are-w...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  No, we couldn't cultivate algae. You don't get good at that stuff until after you've already had an industrial civilization for a hundred or more years. Where will you get the "transparent bags", for instance? Sure after the algae fuels are going good, presumably you can make anything you need... but that's the bootstrapping problem again. Do you know what you needed to start using petroleum? 18th/19th century pumping equipment. Can you bootstrap biofuels with that?
InclinedPlane 12y ago
Care to back up your deforestation assertion with research? The reality is that there's been a significant amount of reforestation around the world. Some parts are better off than others, but in the US and Europe, for examples, there is more forest today than there was in the late 19th century.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  The late 19th century was already how many centuries into the industrial revolution? If you're just going to pick irrelevant, arbitrary comparison points, why not claim that it's gotten better since 1982?
  - tripzilch 12y ago
    Slightly more than one century. Definitely not centurieS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
PepeGomez 12y ago
>How would you be able to make glass without fossil fuels? I think that glass is much older than you think.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
  I think you're being disingenuous. Can a caveman melt some sand in a woodfire? Yeh probably. That glass will be worthless for any sort of technology. And by the time he can make better glass, he's all out of stuff to burn. You don't get to do technological civilization twice. The first one uses up all the easy-to-use resources, and supposing there is anything left at all, it won't be usable without the technology that they won't have. Europe got to use glass because it had plenty of forests to burn. Those are gone. They won't be coming back any time soon.

Balgair 12y ago

Oh, for a post-apocalyptic world? There, of course, would be challenges to 're-do' the world to where we are now. Hopefully it never comes to that, but those people will probably be a lot different than we are now. Heck, we are a lot different then our grandparents are in terms of tech and what we think is obvious as a tech. Also, I dont think most of the material will be lost. Take aluminum. It's nearly un'rust'able and really doesn't degrade over the time spans we are talking about. Making it from scratch is not obvious, you need electrolysis [1] and some other not terribly clear ideas. That said, you can do it in a garage; you don't need a foundry. And those ideas are likely to survive the end of the world, seeing as aluminum is so useful. Overall, ideas are like genetics, once you get one great working thing it's hard to loose that mechanism. Give yourself more credit, you are smarter than you think. [1]http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/extraction/aluminium.html http://www.chemguide.co.uk/inorganic/extraction/aluminium.ht...

tsotha 12y ago

We have not "deforested the planet". What are you running on about? You can make glass without fossil fuels. If you have energy you can make fossil fuels from air. The key part to replacing fossil fuels is having the energy. Hopefully cheap and in great supply.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> We have not "deforested the planet". What are you running on about? Take a look at the before and after pictures. Forest covered half of North America. It's all gone. Prior to that, covered most of Europe, the British Isles. We've deforested it. It takes something on the order a million years for that to recover, supposing it does.
NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
> We have not "deforested the planet". What are you running on about? Take a look at the before and after pictures. Forest covered half of North America. It's all gone. Prior to that, covered most of Europe, the British Isles. We've deforested it. It takes something on the order a million years for that to recover, supposing it does. > If you have energy you can make fossil fuels from air. We're talking about a scenario where they won't have the energy to do that. It's a bootstrapping problem. Everyone commenting here is saying "but that's ok, we'll have all we need to make this fancy stuff"... When the problem itself is posed as "what if we no longer have all we need to make fancy stuff".
- tsotha 12y ago
  >Take a look at the before and after pictures. Forest covered half of North America. It's all gone. Pictures of North America? What pictures? North America is more heavily forested than it was 100 years ago. >We're talking about a scenario where they won't have the energy to do that. It's a bootstrapping problem. We can do it with nuclear power. Maybe even renewables, depending on what happens with battery technology. >When the problem itself is posed as "what if we no longer have all we need to make fancy stuff" That will never happen. There are options. It's just a question of what makes the most sense.

visarga 12y ago

We could also cultivate algae. There is the "open-pond" system and the "vertical growth" system where water is cycled into an installation made of transparent bags. Algae take nutrients from the water (and light from the sun) to develop and are then filtered out as they grow. They turn the algae into biofuel (algal oil). http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science/algae-biodiesel3.htm http://science.howstuffworks.com/environmental/green-science... and http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/10/13/where-are-we-with-algae-biofuels/ http://www.biofuelsdigest.com/bdigest/2014/10/13/where-are-w...

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
No, we couldn't cultivate algae. You don't get good at that stuff until after you've already had an industrial civilization for a hundred or more years. Where will you get the "transparent bags", for instance? Sure after the algae fuels are going good, presumably you can make anything you need... but that's the bootstrapping problem again. Do you know what you needed to start using petroleum? 18th/19th century pumping equipment. Can you bootstrap biofuels with that?

InclinedPlane 12y ago

Care to back up your deforestation assertion with research? The reality is that there's been a significant amount of reforestation around the world. Some parts are better off than others, but in the US and Europe, for examples, there is more forest today than there was in the late 19th century.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
The late 19th century was already how many centuries into the industrial revolution? If you're just going to pick irrelevant, arbitrary comparison points, why not claim that it's gotten better since 1982?
- tripzilch 12y ago
  Slightly more than one century. Definitely not centurieS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

PepeGomez 12y ago

>How would you be able to make glass without fossil fuels? I think that glass is much older than you think.

NoMoreNicksLeft 12y ago
I think you're being disingenuous. Can a caveman melt some sand in a woodfire? Yeh probably. That glass will be worthless for any sort of technology. And by the time he can make better glass, he's all out of stuff to burn. You don't get to do technological civilization twice. The first one uses up all the easy-to-use resources, and supposing there is anything left at all, it won't be usable without the technology that they won't have. Europe got to use glass because it had plenty of forests to burn. Those are gone. They won't be coming back any time soon.