Apr 3, 2026 07:04 PM
Scientists say fossil fuels may be vital for technological civilisations to emerge
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/...ssil-fuels
EXCERPTS: Central to their argument is the role of fossil fuels in driving the Industrial Revolution that ultimately gave rise to our current advanced technological civilisation. The geological formation of fossil fuels – specifically large deposits of easily accessible coal – came down to a series of contingencies that might not occur on other Earth-like planets.
[...] Coal played a crucial role through the 19th century in driving the Industrial Revolution, in smelting iron ore, forging steel tools and machine parts, and powering steam engines. In 1720, iron production in Britain alone would have needed 830,000 tonnes of wood turned into charcoal to fuel the furnaces – that would have required a forest almost the size of Great Britain to be felled every year.
It was ancient forests, dug up as coal, that supplied this critical energy gap. They point out that deposits of other fossil fuels – oil and gas – lie much deeper underground, so the earlier coal-fired stage of industrialisation was necessary to enable them to be exploited.
Similarly, alternatives such as hydropower or solar power could only be developed to deliver sufficient energy by the complex metallurgy and infrastructure that came out of the Industrial Revolution. They believe it unlikely that any civilisation could leapfrog over fossil fuels entirely and go straight to such renewable energy sources.
[...] This particular combination of plate tectonic and climatic conditions, they say, is so unusual that it’s unlikely to have been common on other Earth-like planets... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...72B73204EF
https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/...ssil-fuels
EXCERPTS: Central to their argument is the role of fossil fuels in driving the Industrial Revolution that ultimately gave rise to our current advanced technological civilisation. The geological formation of fossil fuels – specifically large deposits of easily accessible coal – came down to a series of contingencies that might not occur on other Earth-like planets.
[...] Coal played a crucial role through the 19th century in driving the Industrial Revolution, in smelting iron ore, forging steel tools and machine parts, and powering steam engines. In 1720, iron production in Britain alone would have needed 830,000 tonnes of wood turned into charcoal to fuel the furnaces – that would have required a forest almost the size of Great Britain to be felled every year.
It was ancient forests, dug up as coal, that supplied this critical energy gap. They point out that deposits of other fossil fuels – oil and gas – lie much deeper underground, so the earlier coal-fired stage of industrialisation was necessary to enable them to be exploited.
Similarly, alternatives such as hydropower or solar power could only be developed to deliver sufficient energy by the complex metallurgy and infrastructure that came out of the Industrial Revolution. They believe it unlikely that any civilisation could leapfrog over fossil fuels entirely and go straight to such renewable energy sources.
[...] This particular combination of plate tectonic and climatic conditions, they say, is so unusual that it’s unlikely to have been common on other Earth-like planets... (MORE - missing details)
PAPER: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/...72B73204EF