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Old 06-16-2018, 12:41 AM   #21
evileeyore
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Default Re: Solarpunk World Building

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Coal and oil deposits are known, but considered as useful as pools of cyanide would be to us.
But cyanide has so many uses! So many...
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Old 06-16-2018, 01:16 AM   #22
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Probably the biggest change between our world and a world like this is that personal physical mobility goes way down as the automobile is never developed because there isn't a good enough fuel. The closest is probably vegetable oils, which has 15% less energy per unit weight and is likely more expensive. The result of this is that everyone lives in apartment buildings in cities and commutes via train. You don't see American style small cities built around one or two factories because there's no way for them to ship their goods. There's no commercial air travel, at least not at the level we see today.

There's a LOT more government interference in peoples lives, because for society to function it has too as infrastructure is more important. The modern habit of swapping jobs frequently never develops.

An important part of Britain's rise to power is a fuel transition from high efficiency wind developed by the Dutch to British pioneered coal/steam. Now something like this could still happen, just based on wood instead. But the follow up switch from coal to oil that played a part in American ascendancy can't happen. What probably happens in it's place is German development of nuclear power.
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Old 06-16-2018, 01:44 AM   #23
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Probably the biggest change between our world and a world like this is that personal physical mobility goes way down as the automobile is never developed because there isn't a good enough fuel. The closest is probably vegetable oils, which has 15% less energy per unit weight and is likely more expensive. The result of this is that everyone lives in apartment buildings in cities and commutes via train. You don't see American style small cities built around one or two factories because there's no way for them to ship their goods. There's no commercial air travel, at least not at the level we see today.

There's a LOT more government interference in peoples lives, because for society to function it has too as infrastructure is more important. The modern habit of swapping jobs frequently never develops.

An important part of Britain's rise to power is a fuel transition from high efficiency wind developed by the Dutch to British pioneered coal/steam. Now something like this could still happen, just based on wood instead. But the follow up switch from coal to oil that played a part in American ascendancy can't happen. What probably happens in it's place is German development of nuclear power.
Can nuclear power still be developed in the 1950s assuming the scientific developments on the theoretical side progress normally?

I know even that's not a given, x-rays need to be discovered in the 1890s, then studies with centrifuges or some such need to be preformed to observe the uranium isotopes in the early 1930s, etc. assuming it can be done though could a reactor be built?
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Old 06-16-2018, 02:09 AM   #24
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Can nuclear power still be developed in the 1950s assuming the scientific developments on the theoretical side progress normally?

I know even that's not a given, x-rays need to be discovered in the 1890s, then studies with centrifuges or some such need to be preformed to observe the uranium isotopes in the early 1930s, etc. assuming it can be done though could a reactor be built?
How much of this requires fossil fuels? And I'd assume that development of nuclear energy would occur much faster then in real life because such a timeline would be energy starved, remember they have to burn wood instead of coal.

I'd also imagine that all of the Americas with the possible exception of Canada are an ecological disaster as they've cut down all their forests with any regard for the future. Canada being essentially run by the British at this point might have avoided it.
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Old 06-16-2018, 02:44 AM   #25
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How much of this requires fossil fuels? And I'd assume that development of nuclear energy would occur much faster then in real life because such a timeline would be energy starved, remember they have to burn wood instead of coal.

I'd also imagine that all of the Americas with the possible exception of Canada are an ecological disaster as they've cut down all their forests with any regard for the future. Canada being essentially run by the British at this point might have avoided it.
It's not that it requires fossil fuels, it's that high energy density fuel like oil and coal drive industrialization that makes the tools to make the tools to make the tools to make the reactor.

I also don't think a commercial reactor could of been built sooner. The underlying principles weren't sufficiently explored to an extent that showed fission could be used for power generation till like 1938. Then we have the American Military industrial complex pooring money into the development of reactors for ships and subs.
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Old 06-16-2018, 03:41 AM   #26
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An important part of Britain's rise to power is a fuel transition from high efficiency wind developed by the Dutch to British pioneered coal/steam. Now something like this could still happen, just based on wood instead. But the follow up switch from coal to oil that played a part in American ascendancy can't happen. What probably happens in it's place is German development of nuclear power.
That's not consistent with the history that I've read. The Dutch dominated the seventeenth century; the British dominated the eighteenth and nineteenth; the Americans dominated the twentieth. The transition to steam took place largely in the second half of the nineteenth: The Monitor and Merrimack in the 1860s were pioneering steam warships, and steam merchant ships were slow to emerge, given that wind was free—the nineteenth century was the era of the clipper ship.
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Old 06-16-2018, 07:10 AM   #27
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Nuclear power plants are glorified steam engines.

Natural fission is possible. See Oklo.
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Old 06-16-2018, 07:41 AM   #28
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Natural fission is possible. See Oklo.
It was possible in the past, but isn't any more. This is because U-235, the naturally fissile isotope, has a shorter half-life than the much commoner U-238, and so the proportion of it found in nature is slowly decreasing.

I exploited that in the setup for a Steampunk campaign in the 1990s, by making the Earth about half its real age. That meant that you could easily build a reactor from metallic natural uranium and ordinary water.

I didn't want nuclear weapons, though, and found a way to avoid them. When a U-235 nucleus fissions, a small proportion of the neutrons released are delayed, typically by a few seconds. The rest are released promptly, within 10^-14 or so seconds. The delayed neutrons make it practical to control a reactor, and don't contribute to a nuclear explosion, which is done entirely with the prompt neutrons.

I deemed that in the setting, the average number of prompt neutrons was only about 0.8, which makes a prompt criticality impossible, and means that a reactor is quite easy to control. I'm not sure what other effects the necessary changes to nuclear physics would have, but that's the trick of justifying changes to physics for game purposes: make them so esoteric that none of your players care. I couldn't get away with that if I was GMing for particle physicists, but my players are economists, game designers, accountants, computer people and librarians, so it's fine.
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Old 06-16-2018, 08:08 AM   #29
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Fission power is ultimately from a star, although admittedly not the Sun. Some ancient supernova ran up a lot of post-iron isotopes and then blew them all over the place.

Fusion power, I'll grant the point.
Except all solar power is originally fusion. :)
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Old 06-16-2018, 08:15 AM   #30
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I quite like the idea of a colony that lodt contact with it's Interstellar civilization and the techbase just broke down.
It wouldn't even have to be interstellar, would it? Mars or Venus would work.

Here are some old thoughts. Here are some other ones. [URL="https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=25569"] Here are some geology thoughts. Here is the state of my world building for a terraformed Venus, which has turned into a very long term project. The lack of a biologic past looms large in the world building. And of course, Venus would be an awesome place for solar power...

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