More have access to healthcare and education. By 1973, cold-fusion was discovered and quickly replaced fossil fuels. It is easy to see why governments, especially those in poorer parts of the world, want to help citizens with their energy bills. The mission could be to phase out domestic use and export of coal by a fixed date, or to set a deadline for shifting 50% of US energy consumption to renewable sources. How could an Industrial Revolution occur without fossil fuels? In reality, only the deepest greens are opposed to all forms of growth. In addition to higher consumer spending, that also means higher demand for energy, the bulk of which comes from fossil fuels. How to Power the World without Fossil Fuels. Even the light green approach is going to be tough, and might not work. Unless it is, there will be little point in saying that someone in sub-Saharan Africa can get all the power he or she needs via a solar panel costing as little as $200. This is the way that everyone, from Walt Disney to Hanna-Barbera, thought the world would be. Most growth is the result of innovation – the development of new products, new techniques and new ways of doing things that are an improvement on what went before. Obama could do his bit by making climate change a mission for the US – similar to the way that John F Kennedy vowed to put a man on the moon in the early 1960s. Oil was in particularly short supply after Doomsday, and in most former first world nations it had been exhausted within a few years. The most comprehensive study of its kind, the paper covers learning rates for 58% of the world’s reactors in seven countries from 1954 to 2015. POD: Humans during the Middle Ages perfect sustainable forestry through methods such as coppicing/pollarding. The IEA also makes the point that it is time the world got its act together. Coal is by far the dirtiest of the fossil fuels; it needs to be phased out first, and rapidly. Tim Jackson of the University of Surrey, author of Prosperity Without Growth, says we need fewer resource-intensive activities that damage the climate, but more of the services that improve the quality of people’s lives. We want technical change, for example, to build new solar technologies. The Best Examples of Alternative Energy Sources 11. Fossil fuels are a finite resource and each year they get more expensive relative to renewables and nuclear. In 2043, the fossil fuel age is over: nuclear power stations ar e melting down, there is no access to the electricity grid and solar panels are so prized that they are looted. “Rapidly phasing out fossil fuels is critical to address the climate crisis because fossil fuels are the biggest driver of the climate crisis. The economy shrank and strict food rationing was imposed. Pre-1900s. Food production became less oil-intensive, as every possible scrap of land was exploited. Apart from the impact on households, power shortages are holding back growth and job creation. There was an acute shortage of fuel for tractors. … We’re going to have to look more closely at carbon capture and storage, because that’s a way of using your fossil fuels without emitting. But there is going to be a lag, even on the most optimistic assumptions, before renewables can take the place of coal. Catastrophic climate change has become a reality. Life expectancy was 40 at best, the working week was long, disease was rife and diets were poor. “It’s pretty obvious that we can’t both burn fossil fuels and limit the damage from climate change. Powered by sonic booms and nuclear reactors, Tim Clark imagines aircraft from an alt-history of aviation without fossil fuels. But Barack Obama does not think that way, and nor does China’s president, Xi Jinping, which is why they signed a deal in November 2014 setting targets for CO2 emissions up to 2030. But that does not mean that we can afford to wait until the second half of the century to make the transition to non‑fossil-fuel energy. Fewer people go hungry. Unlike other forms of natural gas, hydrogen is a completely clean burning fuel. This paper studies whether using fossil fuels are beneficial, and can an alternative be used, instead of fossil fuels, to meet the energy demand of the world. There are those who might argue otherwise, but life in the world before the industrial revolution really was nasty, brutish and short. We want other people to do stuff, we want to divest from companies – but what about us? The acceleration of growth and big increases in living standards only really began with the industrial revolution; they would not have happened without the exploitation of fossil fuels. Although the fossil fuel coal had been used as a fuel since 1,000 B.C., it wasn't until the arrival of the Industrial Revolution from the mid-1700s through the 1800s that coal began to replace biomass as the primary source of energy.. “To say that we have to stop growing – that we have to go backwards – I think is factually wrong, and also politically unlikely to be successful.”. We need more Barcelonas and fewer Atlantas, because that will encourage us to change the way we live: walking more, using public transport more, sharing cars, cycling. She told the Royal Society that her government supported the idea of sustainable economic development, and concluded: “Stable prosperity can be achieved throughout the world, provided the environment is nurtured and safeguarded. “Free markets work.”. By this he means that central banks and finance ministers are set up to deal with short-term problems, such as whether inflation will hit its target in two or three years’ time, or whether another housing bubble can be prevented before the end of the decade. We are ultimately the consumers of those carbon-based products, and when we elect politicians, what’s worrying is that we’re not prepared to say: ‘Make us pay for the damage and the pollution we cause.’”. The Middle East and other oil-rich areas, however, still possessed oil extraction and refinement facilities, allowing them to still make use of petroleum products to fuel their vehicles. Hydrogen Gas. The reunification of Germany, however, happens in a similar way as it does in OTL. I think that’s totally naive.”. Unlike the renewable energy sources, a power station burning fossil fuels to generate power will occupy a much smaller surface of land than a solar park or a wind farm. Between two-thirds and four-fifths will need to be left in the ground. That message would be reinforced by putting a price on carbon. Direct global fossil fuel subsidies reached $319 billion in 2017, and $5.2 trillion when indirect costs such as air pollution are priced in. Take your favorite fandoms with you and never miss a beat. The fossil fuel age will end either when there are newer, better and cleaner ways of providing energy, or when it is too late to prevent irreparable damage to the planet. Later, the Space Race does not end and it continues to this day. The fossil fuel companies are in business because we want the products that fossil fuels make and power. Now the underlying driver of economic growth is technical change, and technical change is accelerating. “What matters is the sort of growth we choose. The UN is hosting a conference in Paris in late 2015 that will seek commitments to reduce carbon emissions from all the countries attending. There are not many votes to be won these days by promising to increase foreign aid, but taxpayers in the west have to realise that poor countries with copious reserves of fossil fuels are going to exploit them, and that one way of mitigating the impact is to transfer to them the latest technology. The current coalition government in the UK has come under attack for allowing the economy to flatline for a couple of years, but incomes per head barely rose in the 1,300 years between the sacking of Rome and the mid‑18th century. The PC is invented in 1974. The market model spread quickly to parts of the world that previously it could not touch: to China, where the reforms begun by Deng Xiaoping were accelerated; to India, where the idea that the world’s biggest democracy could go it alone was abandoned; to the Soviet Union and its former satellites, which received a strong dose of economic shock treatment. That is why Japan’s population is ageing and shrinking. “Delaying action is a false economy: for every $1 of investment in cleaner technology that is avoided in the power sector before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.” Fossil fuels are not going to disappear overnight, but the phasing-out process needs to start immediately, and that process could be hastened if governments used the opportunity provided by the recent halving of global oil prices to remove the $1tn annual subsidies for fossil fuels. Kirk Siegler / NPR The first is that the balance of power in the workplace has tilted decisively in favour of capital over labour: with an abundance of cheap workers to choose from, employers can be mean with pay. The Cuban government responded by creating urban farms: agriculture went local, small scale and – by necessity – organic. Well, according to Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers, economists at the University of Michigan in the US, the evidence is that wellbeing rises with income, and that the satiation point has yet to be reached, even in the richest countries. This interactive map shows the share of electricity that comes from fossil fuels (coal, oil and gas summed together) across the world. And then, further out, what we need are new technologies.”. First stop: New York State. Lang et al. “There have been two terrible realisations,” says Michael Jacobs, who used to advise Gordon Brown on the issue. Finding alternatives to conventional fuels is the need of the day. The next wave looks like it will be dominated by digital technology, robotics, biotech, lighter materials and renewable energy. Those who want to cut consumption and restrict population growth have the same question to answer: unless you are prepared to use draconian methods, how do you do it? 9/11 does not occur, as the oil-rich but money-starved Middle Eastern countries become democratic and join NATO. Historical Timeline: History of Alternative Energy and Fossil Fuels – Our updated timeline featuring the history of alternative energy and fossil fuel development from 2000 BC to present includes the latest details from President Obama’s June 25, 2013 climate action plan. Because of increased government income from lack of fuel needs, the manned space missions to the Moon are not cancelled and astronauts make it to Mars by 1981. Cuba, subject to a US economic embargo, was one such country. Rising sea levels have caused floods on the New York City subway, killing thousands. “If we say the only way to handle this is to stop growing, we will be factually wrong, because if we stopped growing but didn’t break the relationship between activity and emissions, we wouldn’t be tackling climate change.”. As things stand, the offers will fall a long way short of what the experts say is a level consistent with the 2C target – about 12bn tonnes a year, short according to Michael Jacobs. They have invested in fossil fuel-burning power plants and built energy‑inefficient buildings in cities designed for cars. Prior to Doomsday, all supplies of gas, oil, natural gas, and coal were imported by rail, truck, or boat into the region. identify evidence of disruption of the transition from fossil fuels to nuclear, and demonstrate that substantial benefits were lost as a result. Fossil Fuels & Renewable Energy For A Sustainable Generation Without fossil fuels, battery technology advances faster - … After the crash, when the developed world was struggling to emerge from the deepest slump since the Great Depression, it was China and India that acted as the engines of growth. Scientists give answers at COP23. China currently builds a new coal-fired power station every two weeks. By 1973, cold-fusion was discovered and quickly replaced fossil fuels. That is because the real growth in energy demand from now on is going to come from the developing world. The second problem with the deep-green approach is that even assuming rich people in the west could be persuaded to curb their consumption, it would not stop CO2 emissions from rising. As of 2021, peak oil forecasts range from 2019 to 2040, depending on economics and how governments respond to global warming. Not everybody buys into this narrative, of course. Firms have to depend on costly generators, which makes goods more expensive. And which technologies work best to help us transition to a world without fossil fuels? But the problem goes much further than figures such as Tony Abbott, the prime minister of Australia, or Nigel Lawson, the former UK chancellor of the exchequer, or about every Republican harbouring hopes of winning the nomination for the 2016 US presidential race. The same 2bn tonnes of CO2 could be saved through substantial improvements in energy-efficiency over and above those already expected. There are only three ways of reducing our carbon footprint: reduce the amount each person consumes, reduce the number of people, or make each unit of growth less carbon-intensive. After decades of relying on Moscow for oil, chemical fertilisers, pesticides and a large chunk of its food, Fidel Castro’s government faced a crisis. The discovery of the two hottest areas (that are average temperatures for humans) … This could be achieved in one of two ways: through a carbon tax, or through a cap-and-trade scheme. If it comes to pass, it will be because, despite all the warnings, climate change has not been taken seriously enough. The business-as-usual camp says that the scientific consensus is wrong about climate change, or that climate scientists have exaggerated the risks, which can be tackled if and when they become apparent. fossil fuels: also known as mineral fuels, they are hydrocarbon containing natural resources such as coal, petroleum, and natural gas solar energy: harnessing the … https://althistory.fandom.com/wiki/Retrofuture_World?oldid=751628. We separate carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and ozone (O3) in Figure 1, because they are produced by different processes and have different growth rates. 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