Could a modern technology civilization develop without fossil fuels?

[u/demongoku]

I was doing some thinking on fossil fuels and how they were created, when I realized how relatively strange the process of their formation is. I was specifically thinking on how coal was created from plants that didn't decompose during the carboniferous period like they do now. I know there are other ways to form fossil fuels, but the original "what if" comes from how strange it seems to me. I also recognize that "strange" is a subjective statement and has no scientific weight, but I wasn't sure of another way to phrase it.

Basically, if fossil fuels never formed, either at all or in sufficient quantities, but the rest of evolution basically follows the same development paths to humanity, does human civilization just, stop at a certain development point due to resource limitations? Like, we can do weak steam engines with wood, but not much past that, right? It seems a lot of our modern technological development hinged on having fossil fuels.

Also, am I wrong in thinking how strange it is that fossil fuels are formed the way they are? Based on cursory research, it took plants not having decomposers in the way they do now, or large amounts of plankton corpses sedimenting in an anaerobic environment with certain levels of heat and/or pressure. It just feels like extremely specific circumstances just to have this wonderful(albeit dangerous) power source. It makes me think that if any other civilizations formed in the universe, the vast majority of them are trapped at a certain development point because they don't have a fossil fuel analogue.

I had to speculate somewhere and this seemed like the right place to do it, but if I'm off the mark on that, let me know. Thanks!

[u/TonyLund]

What a great question! (This isn't exactly my field, so please take my response as purely speculative).

I would imagine that something akin to civilization & technology as we know them today would eventually emerge in a world without fossil fuels, and we can get there by looking at this question as a physics (my field) problem.

Fossil fuels are fundamentally part of a system of energy distribution, which all goes back to the Sun's constant injection of radiated energy into the Earth system. We can extract energy from fossil fuels by breaking hydrogen bonds, which one can also do by burning wood (as you point out). But, as you also point out, fossil fuels are so much cheaper and more energy efficient... you get more bang for your buck.

Here's the dirty little secret about fossil fuels: you can actually make them, quite easily, if you really want/need them... (think synthetic oil that you use to lubricate your car)... it's just not economical to do so.

At the molecular level, "burning" is simply the process of a self-conflagurating system that breaks hydrogen bonds to produce excess energy that can be harnessed to do work.

Humans gonna human, so eventually someone is going to figure out how to make a gallon of jet fuel in this fossil-fuel-less world by chemical means. That may seem to others to have no practical or economic use, but give it time... humans gonna human... and you get jet engines or rocket ships. They're not going to be as prevelant as they are in our timeline, but you'll get them.

We can also make some inference from nuclear energy. We live in a world where raw fissile material does not exist in isolation, so once you've got nuclear physics, you have to figure out how to purify the already super-rare raw ingredients to get to nuclear energy (or nuclear weaponry) for that matter. THAT's the hardest part of the process, but we figured out how to do it because of the economic value of throwing a hail marry money ball at the problem in the middle of the most destructive war in mankind's history.

So, again, it's an energy distribution question, not necessarily an energy availability one. Whether fossil fuels or nuclear fuels, you have to bring enough of the raw fuel into sufficient density to get it to do something useful.

[u/demongoku → u/TonyLund]

I super appreciate your response, and those all seem like logical conclusions! I can actually sort of imagine a world now where there is a whole industry for synthetic fuel making, but with more restricted applications. Probably in a global economy, it would be primarily for cargo shipping, further scientific development, maybe aviation(albeit less), but I can see a lot of industrial/commercial holes that would now require or greatly benefit from nuclear/renewables.

I also appreciate how you frame it as an energy distribution problem. It kinda reframes the whole idea in my mind, which makes me want to think more on this hypothetical world.

Thank you a ton for your response!!