Re: [Traveller_TNE] Low Tech Stuff

On 19 May 2007 at 8:53, Gerry Harris wrote:

> I picked TL 3-5 because it covers the 19th and early 20th centuries.
> I wanted hydroelectric power for some of the more advanced states
> which is TL 5. Most of the world would be solidly TL 4, while the
> backward areas are going to be TL 3. Unfortunately, transportation
> is pretty much at the animal power stage because of the lack of
> fossil fuels. There will be alcohol-powered vehicles, but the
> society has to make a trade-off between growing crops for human and
> animal consumption or growing crops for alcohol distillation.

Worse, you need a lot of biomass *as* biomass to have enough oxygen
in the air to breathe. And to prevent a runaway greenhouse effect. I
suspect you'll need to at least have had the planet get as far as
algae in the ocean to have it have been suitable for terraforming.
:-(

> Using wood leads to extensive deforestation.

Also leads to excess CO2 and a nasty greenhouse effect since you
don't have the coal and oil deposits as a carbon sink.

> Lacking fossil fuels puts a definite stopper on some technologies
> (color-fast dyes and plastics, for instance). It also leads to a
> number of political tradeoffs, such as the alcohol problem above.

Not political. *Ecological*. Which translates to *survival*.

> I'm looking for clever workarounds for these limitations.
> Animal-drawn railways, for instance, or pedal-powered vehicles (I've
> included a pedal cart on my website as an example). I'm also
> looking for limitations that I haven't thought of.

Animal power is *less* efficient. Which counts. Other than the
CO2/Oxygen tradeoff you come out behind using animal power (which
includes human power).

The only "good" side is that you get more fertilizer in the form of
waste p[roducts.

You might want to track down a copy of Hal Clement's "Needle" as it
has a project as part of the background that applies here. Using
"tailored" bacteria to turn "trash" vegetation into oil.

In any case, the thing to keep in mind is that unless there were
native plants (even algae) then every bit of oxygen in the air used
to be part of a CO2 molecule. Which means that all the carbon from
that CO2 had to be buried as fossil fuel deposits or else converted
into biomass. That's a *lot* of biomass. Enough to make your fuel
concerns minor.

--
Leonard Erickson (aka shadow)
shadow at shadowgard dot com