On Mon, Jul 02, 2007 at 10:39:10AM +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote: > >Is there any science fiction based on the premise of fossil fuels > >having run, and the world returning, perforce, to the much slower pace > >of pre-electricity/ pre-petroleum communication/travel? Is there any
Returning with many a nuclear flash, and a population crash, no doubt. Even in absence of conflicts for resources, no nitrogen fixation and deteriorated soil is going to send population density levels to the only sustainable: hunter-gatherer. > >speculation about how the present-day population would manage in > >such a scenario? > > Why SF - there are enough (relatively) sober, serious discussions > about this. This is being presented as a likely scenario, NOT as fiction. Of course it's fiction, there's plenty of uranium, thorium, natural gas, coal, kerogen and oil sands to last for hundreds of years -- meanwhile, photovoltaics is about a decade away from crossover (with a fossil price hike the crossover will come considerably sooner), wind is beyond crossover, and there are many other renewable sources. There's 1.3 kW/m^2 of free wireless fusion power 24/7/365 just outside the atmosphere. Burning dead dinos is as silly as using whale oil to light your rooms. > For example: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak > http://www.theoildrum.com/ > http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/ -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
