An idle wondering

Well...

I think it's safe to say that it'd be _quite_ different, and you can't really say 'but the groups about cars' - because that supposes that you could get cars.

What'd the world be like? Well - I think it's safe to assume that things proceed pretty much as they did in this timeline, up until maybe 16-1700.

Then, it slows down.

It's not just the cars. For example, much of the development of steam engines was for pumping out coal mines. No/fewer mines, and you delay steam engine development. No coal, and you delay all iron/steel development by quite a bit too - as it's expensive to make with charcoal. This means _everything_ made out of iron is expensive. From swords, to ploughshares, to armour, to horseshoes. Bricks are expensive, as you've got to run the kilns on wood. People are expensive, as you've got less advanced food production and housing. Don't forget that when you get that far, no tarmac. You'd see wars to gain territory to grow timber for the mother country.

America would probably still be a UK colony - or at least would have been for a lot longer - because we'd have fought a hell of a lot harder to keep them. Think Iraq, but with trees.

I think it's probably safe to say we wouldn't have cars 'now'. The slower rise of population, and lack of development of engines due to lack of mines, and comparative expense of mechanised war may well set back common personal transport quite a way. I would not be surprised to see electric cars as the first widely available personal transport - as wood is in demand for _everything_.

The big question IMO, is when can nuclear be brought online, because then everything changes, and you go from a (comparitively) energy poor society to a rich one.

And other biofuels - sugarcane/... aren't particularly better than wood.

Consider your house.

In an energy expensive society, it's colder, it takes longer to construct, as you'll be using lime mortar, which takes longer to set, and needs more people on site, you don't have (or they are more expensive) bricks, so you need skilled masons, ...

I was wondering if the clever brains of the "Let's actually make something useful" age, whenever that was/would have been, would have come up with a version of nuclear energy a lot sooner? We might actually have been better off without fossil fuels.

Si

It's hard to say. Fossil fuel kickstarted much of science - from steam engines to ...

On the other hand, Curies work could have been done without much fossil fuel input. Though with less ability to work mines, as there is less demand for coal and iron, as it's expensive, there technology to extract minerals may be less pronounced.

It's impossible to untangle all of this. I think it's likely to lead to a much wider exploitation of surface, rather than underground deposits. I would guess chemistry - proper - might start earlier, as given the lack of fossil fuels - there has to be a moderately complex industry starting up on plant oils - for lubrication, ...

And I'd expect 'organic' people to get laughed at. Large monocultures of highly managed woodland would be _everywhere_ in europe - other crops may be better elsewhere.

You _can_ make nuclear power with little fossil input - but, you can also make a steam engine powered boat using only iron age stuff.

Little more than a bar of crude iron, a pot, some leather bags, and an oar.

This doesn't mean that these existed before 1960 - though the technology to make them was probably around 4000 years earlier.

I don't yet understand how it works, mind :)

Si

The message from "Mungo \"Two Sheds\" Toadfoot" contains these words:

I can't see where the steam exhausts. A few holes round the middle of the cylinder should do it.

I wonder if the water actually becomes steam at all. Looks to me as if it works by the air on one side getting heated and expanding, pushing the piston over. This then pushes the poke stick, which squirts water into the cylinder, cooling the air, causing a vacuum and pulling the piston back as the other side warms, expands, etc. All a bit like a Stirling engine (or is this where we came in - I missed the start of the thread?).

Perhaps the water just gets pushed back up into its bag...

As I understand it.

The piston starts on the left side. Then a slug of water gets shot in. This boils rapidly - possibly taking a significant fraction of the time that it takes for the cylinder to hit the other end. During all this time, steam is leaking out past the piston rod, the pressure is only sustained by the water continuing to boil off, and the remaining pressure.

The remaining steam is pushed out past the poor seals round the piston during the other sides power stroke.

If you make a little adaption - drill a hole in the pot, lap it conical using the valve you're going to put in it - so it looks like

# / / >center of piston ========#==== # \ \

put one of these at each end of the cylnder.

At TDC, just before the water is injected, the piston pushes the valve mostly closed. It's then sealed properly by the pressure spike when the water is injected.

The valve is then opened at bdc, with a similar device to the push stick used to poke the bag, and it stays open due to friction of the mounting blocks of the valve.

If you can then improve the sealing of the thing a bit, and connect these valves to a condensing chamber, you've got a more efficient system.

The message from Ian Stirling contains these words:

I reckon just a ring of holes round the centre of the barrel would do. Connected to a pipe running under the boat to act as a condenser - flap valve over the end to maintain the vacuum...

It's got no flywheel. It'll stop the first time it hits the center. AIUI.

The message from Ian Stirling contains these words:

Not if the pistons or ancillaries are heavy enough!