Anonymous at Sat, 12 Oct 2024 16:38:52 UTC No. 16422997

>>16422989
>which is unique to earth's biology
you don't know this
how about solar?

Anonymous at Sat, 12 Oct 2024 16:51:43 UTC No. 16423022

>>16422989
Hydrocarbons are very simple molecules and even if there wasn't oil here plenty of other substitutes like wood, coal and gas do the job just fine. Earth isn't even the place with the most hydrocarbons we know off so the notion that oil doesn't exist elsewhere is also pretty ridiculous.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 07:16:02 UTC No. 16424350

>>16422989
they wouldn't.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 07:24:56 UTC No. 16424360

its not as good as you think it is

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 08:14:05 UTC No. 16424446

>>16422989
>unique to earth's biology
it's not
>How would alien civilizations develop without crude oil
geothermal power is easily accessible and can be used to power steam boilers, which can power machinery directly, or can be used to generate electricity
this is not only feasible on earth, it would be much more feasible on more volcanic planets
volcanism can also provide natural access to temperatures high enough for metallurgy
this is in addition to the obvious wealth of simple tools and important materials that can be extracted, or are naturally available on the surface
needless to say, these materials include comparatively huge amounts of metals and an assortment of important chemicals, such as sulfur, phosphates, minerals, rare earths and gasses
it further provides access to various clays, ceramics and glasses which can be used for construction, tool-making, technology and even to reflect or harvest the sun, which provides enough focused heat for high-temperature metallurgy

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 08:18:45 UTC No. 16424455

Not having oil would be a big downgrade but by no means a brick wall, Less efficient fuel sources are abundant. So development would be slowed, not halted.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 10:39:57 UTC No. 16424800

>>16422989
>unique to earth's biology
You should be more precise, you probably just mean no oil/coal for some reason.
Nuclear energy would be enough, but let's say it's difficult to develop it before full industrial development or they lack the resources, whatever:
Just seed oil is enough to power diesel engines, and with mechanization of agriculture we can make enough to satisfy basically any needs, it's endless energy CO2 neutral.
The only reason we don't currently do that is mostly because there is too much people on Earth and we wouldn't have enough to eat.
With a tenth of the population we could run on bio diesel alone.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 19:24:15 UTC No. 16429185

>>16422989
even if crude oil was unique to earth (it probably isn't) there's plenty of other fuels like ammonia and natty gas

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 19:30:16 UTC No. 16429207

Any exotermic reaction inside cylinder piston system :)

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 20:43:36 UTC No. 16429375

>>16424446
sure you could power machinery with geothermal, but you will never be able to fabricate the machinery in the first place without hydrocarbons.
no energy dense hydrocarbons means no industrialization. period.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 21:06:51 UTC No. 16429440

I thought about this for under water creatures. What would be their equivalent to controlling fire? After a lot of thinking my conclusion was combining and making luminous rocks. Imagine the differences starting with that tech tree instead of our own.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 21:10:03 UTC No. 16429450

they would skip the "boil water so we can boil water so we can uhh boil more water" technology path and just go straight to FTL

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 21:22:56 UTC No. 16429478

>>16422989
Humans were doing okay before oil became the primary fuel source, we had charcoal, coal, gas, wind, water, etc. Which provided power for steam engines, manufacturing, electricity, electric cars, trains, etc. We also gained nuclear and solar during oil's popularity as well. As for other things besides energy, we could replace oil for plastics by using traditional materials before inventing bio plastics, continue using crop rotation instead of artificial fertilizers, continued using cotton for clothes, etc. It might have taken longer, but I think any civilization could leapfrog oil without too much trouble.

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 21:29:43 UTC No. 16429501

>>16423022
Could there be a timeline where hydrogen never even developed and we would have a completely different type of periodic table? Like who is to say we have to have protons and electrons

Anonymous at Sun, 13 Oct 2024 23:33:11 UTC No. 16429779

>>16422989
everyone in here is talking about oil as an energy source, but what i find more interesting is that there's really no alternative to oil as a motor lubricant.

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 02:44:09 UTC No. 16430088

>>16422989
>crude oil which is unique to earth's biology
look up 'abiotic oil'
Fischer-Tropsch synthesis
...for starters

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 02:51:07 UTC No. 16430100

>>16429779
Inb4 alien whale oil.

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 07:53:08 UTC No. 16430460

>>16429779
It's the usual
>we use this that means it's essential
Do you know we can make plastics out of air and water?
It's just more expensive, that's the real reason why we use oil for that.
Yes we can make lubricants too.

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 15:19:02 UTC No. 16431068

>>16429375
Why? They could clearly develop access to metallurgy.

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 16:34:44 UTC No. 16431312

>>16422989
>no crude oil
They would get it from Titan.

Anonymous at Mon, 14 Oct 2024 21:55:14 UTC No. 16431910

>>16422989
maybe you should try to abstract how wasteful and broken mankind actually is and then just ask yourself the question again.

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 01:01:31 UTC No. 16432147

>>16422989
Charcoal, wood gas, steam and electricity.
>>16423022
This

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 02:54:07 UTC No. 16432261

>>16429779
Prewar car enthusiast here, castor oil was considered superior to petroleum oil and among 2 stroke bike enthusiasts it still is. Its where castrol got its name.

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 09:31:08 UTC No. 16432627

>>16429501
That's like asking "What if 2+2=5, though?" All though I do screw around with the idea of unimaginable realities that exist like that.

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 09:51:06 UTC No. 16432647

>unique to earth's biology
retard, no reason to think their biology would be any different

Anonymous at Tue, 15 Oct 2024 10:29:34 UTC No. 16432673

>>16429375
geothermal might have the same problem as nuclear where they need to already be somewhat advanced to do enough of it to matter