WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.399 --> 00:00:07.719 Welcome to Bedtime Astronomy. Explore the wonders of the cosmos 2 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:12.279 with our soothing Bedtime Astronomie podcast. Each episode offers a 3 00:00:12.359 --> 00:00:16.320 gentle journey through the stars, planets, and beyond, perfect for 4 00:00:16.399 --> 00:00:20.239 unwinding after a long day. Let's travel through the mysteries 5 00:00:20.239 --> 00:00:22.440 of the universe as you drift off into a peaceful 6 00:00:22.480 --> 00:00:23.800 slumber under the night sky. 7 00:00:26.920 --> 00:00:29.000 You know, I was standing outside the other night. It 8 00:00:29.120 --> 00:00:32.520 was a really clear sky, no moon, and I was 9 00:00:32.560 --> 00:00:34.000 doing that thing we all do. I was just looking 10 00:00:34.079 --> 00:00:37.520 up at the Milky Way. And when you look at that, 11 00:00:37.520 --> 00:00:39.759 that sort of band of light. You know the numbers. 12 00:00:40.079 --> 00:00:42.920 You've heard them a million times. There are what somewhere 13 00:00:42.960 --> 00:00:46.640 between one hundred and four hundred billion stars just in 14 00:00:46.960 --> 00:00:48.600 our galaxy. 15 00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:50.439 Alone, and almost incomprehensible number. 16 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:54.439 It really is. And you know, statistically, even if life 17 00:00:54.479 --> 00:00:56.960 is a one in a billion shot, the sky should 18 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:00.000 just be buzzing with activity, should be like times square 19 00:01:00.079 --> 00:01:01.200 on New Year's Eve up there. 20 00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:02.679 But it's not. It's quiet. 21 00:01:02.759 --> 00:01:05.159 It's dead quiet. And that's the Fermi paradox, isn't it. 22 00:01:05.159 --> 00:01:07.159 It's the ghost that haunts modern astronomy. 23 00:01:07.200 --> 00:01:11.519 It is the great silence, the question that underpins everything 24 00:01:11.560 --> 00:01:13.640 we do. When we look at the stars, where is 25 00:01:13.680 --> 00:01:14.799 everybody exactly? 26 00:01:14.920 --> 00:01:17.079 It's the question that keeps us up at night. And 27 00:01:17.120 --> 00:01:19.920 for the last what sixty or seventy years, ever since 28 00:01:19.959 --> 00:01:22.680 Frank Drake first wrote down his famous equation, we've been 29 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:23.359 trying to answer it. 30 00:01:23.359 --> 00:01:25.799 We've been listening with massive radio telescopes. 31 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:29.840 Yeah, we've been scanning for radio waves, looking fordyce in spheres, 32 00:01:30.079 --> 00:01:33.799 hunting for laser pulses from some advanced civilization. And the 33 00:01:33.879 --> 00:01:36.599 silence is just well, it's deafening. 34 00:01:36.719 --> 00:01:40.680 It's profoundly unsettling because all the math, all the logic, 35 00:01:41.079 --> 00:01:42.680 it says we shouldn't. 36 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:45.079 Be alone, right, And usually when we try to explain 37 00:01:45.120 --> 00:01:48.760 that silence, we tend to blame you know, biology, We say, 38 00:01:48.879 --> 00:01:52.200 maybe life is just incredibly rare, or maybe the jump 39 00:01:52.200 --> 00:01:55.760 from single cell to multi celled life is the big hurdle. 40 00:01:56.200 --> 00:01:59.120 Or we blame politics, you know, the idea that civilizations 41 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:01.760 get powerful enough to invent nuclear weapons and then they 42 00:02:01.799 --> 00:02:04.159 just they wipe themselves out before they ever get to 43 00:02:04.200 --> 00:02:04.519 the star. 44 00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:08.240 Great filter, But today we're looking at some research that 45 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:11.360 points the finger at something else, entirely, something so mundane, 46 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:15.840 so dirty, and so terrestrial. We almost never think about 47 00:02:15.840 --> 00:02:17.199 it in the context of aliens. 48 00:02:17.319 --> 00:02:19.400 Yeah, we're not talking about DNA, and we're not talking 49 00:02:19.400 --> 00:02:21.439 about nuclear war. We're talking about rocks. 50 00:02:21.759 --> 00:02:24.000 Specifically, we are talking about coal. 51 00:02:24.360 --> 00:02:26.599 It sounds almost ridiculous when you say it out loud, 52 00:02:26.639 --> 00:02:30.599 doesn't it that the key to interstellar communication to the 53 00:02:30.680 --> 00:02:36.520 highest tier of technology might depend on this black, sooty 54 00:02:36.639 --> 00:02:40.280 rock that we are currently trying desperately to stop using. 55 00:02:40.400 --> 00:02:43.960 It feels completely counterintuitive. But this new paper from the 56 00:02:44.000 --> 00:02:47.879 International Journal of Astrobiology, led by Lincoln Taiz, it makes 57 00:02:47.879 --> 00:02:52.000 a really compelling, almost disturbing case. They argue that we 58 00:02:52.080 --> 00:02:54.840 might be alone, not because life is rare, but because 59 00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:58.159 the Industrial Revolution is a kind of geological lottery ticket 60 00:02:58.319 --> 00:03:00.400 that most planets just never get to care in. 61 00:03:01.080 --> 00:03:04.039 Precisely, the core premise is that you can have a 62 00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:08.000 planet absolutely teeming with life, you can have smart, philosophical, 63 00:03:08.080 --> 00:03:11.680 artistic creatures, but if they don't have access to massive, 64 00:03:11.879 --> 00:03:16.719 easily accessible energy, dense deposits of fossil fuels and specifically coal, 65 00:03:17.319 --> 00:03:20.199 they will never break through a certain technological glass ceiling. 66 00:03:20.240 --> 00:03:21.680 They'll never build a radio telescope. 67 00:03:21.759 --> 00:03:24.080 I'll never build a radio telescope. They will never say hello. 68 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:26.759 So our mission today is to really unpack this idea. 69 00:03:27.280 --> 00:03:30.479 We need to understand why a lump of coal is 70 00:03:30.520 --> 00:03:34.240 actually a piece of advanced technology and disguise why our 71 00:03:34.280 --> 00:03:37.000 planet Earth got lucky enough to have it. And you 72 00:03:37.080 --> 00:03:40.800 know what this all means for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. 73 00:03:40.840 --> 00:03:43.159 We're going to be talking about something called the energy ladder, 74 00:03:43.280 --> 00:03:45.120 and I should warn you this might make you look 75 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:48.319 at something as simple as a rusted steel beam or 76 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:51.360 even a cloudy sky with a completely different level of respect. 77 00:03:51.439 --> 00:03:53.120 Okay, let's start with the basics. Then I want to 78 00:03:53.120 --> 00:03:55.240 play the skeptic immediately, because I know you listening are 79 00:03:55.360 --> 00:03:59.800 probably thinking it. I'm certainly thinking it. We're talking about starships, supercomputers, 80 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:04.879 massive SETI arrays, high tech stuff, and you're telling me 81 00:04:04.919 --> 00:04:08.759 the prerequisite for all of that is burning dead plants. 82 00:04:08.879 --> 00:04:12.000 It feels like we're mixing up our eras. Why is 83 00:04:12.039 --> 00:04:15.599 the dirty, primitive stuff a hard requirement for the clean 84 00:04:15.719 --> 00:04:16.560 advanced stuff. 85 00:04:16.720 --> 00:04:19.839 It's a totally valid skepticism. It feels like a paradox. 86 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:22.519 But to really get it, we have to look at 87 00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:25.399 what these authors call the energy ladder, and you have 88 00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:28.360 to think of technological progress not as some you know, 89 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:32.319 smooth upward slope where you just slowly get smarter and 90 00:04:32.360 --> 00:04:34.839 build better things. Right, think of it as a series 91 00:04:34.879 --> 00:04:37.879 of very high, very distinct steps. To get to the 92 00:04:37.879 --> 00:04:41.319 top where you have silicon chips and satellites and solar panels, 93 00:04:41.639 --> 00:04:44.560 you have to be standing firmly on the step just 94 00:04:44.800 --> 00:04:47.920 below it, And the step right below our silicon age 95 00:04:48.279 --> 00:04:49.319 is the steel age. 96 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:52.000 Steel, Okay, I get that. Okay, I mean we use 97 00:04:52.040 --> 00:04:54.319 steel for everything. If I look out my window right now, 98 00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:58.000 every building, every car, every bridge, it all involves steel. 99 00:04:58.360 --> 00:05:00.959 But humans were making metal long before the Industrial revolution. 100 00:05:01.160 --> 00:05:03.000 Right of course, we had the Bronze age with the 101 00:05:03.040 --> 00:05:05.519 iron age. We are making swords and plows using charcoal 102 00:05:05.519 --> 00:05:09.079 from wood fires thousands and thousands of years ago. Why 103 00:05:09.079 --> 00:05:12.439 couldn't an alien civilization just keep doing that? Why couldn't 104 00:05:12.439 --> 00:05:14.959 they just scale that up and build a radio telescope 105 00:05:15.199 --> 00:05:16.360 using wood fired iron? 106 00:05:16.720 --> 00:05:19.680 And this is where the physics gets really mean, it 107 00:05:19.720 --> 00:05:25.480 all comes down to two things, scale and heat. Yes, 108 00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:28.519 you can smelt iron with charcoal, humans did it for millennia. 109 00:05:28.680 --> 00:05:31.720 But charcoal as a fuel source for an industrial civilization 110 00:05:32.279 --> 00:05:33.839 has two fatal flaws. 111 00:05:34.279 --> 00:05:35.079 Okay, what are they? 112 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:38.160 First, it's just not energy dense enough. You have to 113 00:05:38.160 --> 00:05:40.879 burn a staggering amount of forest to get a relatively 114 00:05:40.920 --> 00:05:43.759 small amount of metal. You would effectively have to DeForest 115 00:05:43.800 --> 00:05:47.160 your entire continent just to build one major city. The 116 00:05:47.279 --> 00:05:48.680 energy retun on investment is. 117 00:05:48.680 --> 00:05:50.959 Terrible, right, You run out of fuel pretty quickly. 118 00:05:50.759 --> 00:05:53.600 Very quickly. But the second problem is a structural one, 119 00:05:53.639 --> 00:05:55.560 and this is the one people almost never think about. 120 00:05:55.560 --> 00:05:57.639 Structural You mean the charcoal itself exactly. 121 00:05:58.040 --> 00:06:00.800 To mass produce the kind of steel you need for 122 00:06:00.879 --> 00:06:04.319 skyscrapers or massive ships or launch pads, you need a 123 00:06:04.360 --> 00:06:09.120 blast furnace, a massive towering structure, sometimes ten stories high, 124 00:06:09.439 --> 00:06:12.199 that you feed iron ore into from the top. Okay, 125 00:06:12.560 --> 00:06:15.480 if you fill a giant blast furnace with regular wood 126 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:18.480 charcoal and then dump tons and tons of heavy iron 127 00:06:18.519 --> 00:06:20.839 ore on top of it, what do you think happens 128 00:06:20.839 --> 00:06:21.959 to the charcoal at the bottom. 129 00:06:22.120 --> 00:06:24.439 It would get crushed. Yeah, because charcoal is brittle, it's 130 00:06:24.480 --> 00:06:25.240 just burnt wood. 131 00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:27.879 It gets crushed into dust. It crumbles, and when that 132 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:31.439 charcoal turns to dust, it chokes the fire. Air can't 133 00:06:31.480 --> 00:06:34.920 circulate up through the stack. The combustion process just stops. 134 00:06:35.279 --> 00:06:36.160 The furnace dies. 135 00:06:36.439 --> 00:06:40.240 So you physically cannot build a massive blast furnace using 136 00:06:40.240 --> 00:06:40.879 wood charcoal. 137 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.480 You can't. You hit a hard physical limit on how 138 00:06:43.480 --> 00:06:45.240 big you can go, which means you hit a limit 139 00:06:45.279 --> 00:06:48.839 on how much steel you can produce. Your civilization's growth 140 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:50.759 literally crumbles under its own weight. 141 00:06:51.040 --> 00:06:53.199 So you're saying you can't build the infrastructure of a 142 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:56.680 modern city with wood. The fuel itself breaks right, You 143 00:06:56.759 --> 00:06:57.399 are stuck. 144 00:06:57.600 --> 00:07:00.439 You'll hit a physical limit on production. To go bigger, 145 00:07:00.560 --> 00:07:03.160 to get hotter, you need a fuel that is harder, hotter, 146 00:07:03.240 --> 00:07:04.600 and stronger. You need coke. 147 00:07:04.920 --> 00:07:07.600 And just to clarify for everyone, we are not talking 148 00:07:07.639 --> 00:07:08.319 about the soda. 149 00:07:08.480 --> 00:07:13.120 No, definitely not coke. Coke is a processed fuel made 150 00:07:13.160 --> 00:07:16.240 from coal. You take bituminous coal and you bake it 151 00:07:16.279 --> 00:07:20.560 in an oxygen free oven. This process, called coking, burns 152 00:07:20.560 --> 00:07:24.600 off all the impurities, the water, the tar, the volol gases, 153 00:07:25.000 --> 00:07:28.199 and what you're left with is almost pure concentrated carbon. 154 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.240 Specially about that. 155 00:07:29.399 --> 00:07:33.160 It's hard, it's porous, and it burns incredibly hot and consistently. 156 00:07:33.560 --> 00:07:37.319 But most importantly, it's strong. It has what engineers call 157 00:07:37.519 --> 00:07:38.439 crush strength. 158 00:07:38.560 --> 00:07:39.199 Crush strength. 159 00:07:39.319 --> 00:07:41.879 It can support the weight of hundreds of tons of 160 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:44.839 iron ore stacked on top of it in a blast 161 00:07:44.839 --> 00:07:46.759 furnace without crumbling into dust. 162 00:07:47.040 --> 00:07:51.399 That is such a specific mundane detail. The crush strength 163 00:07:51.560 --> 00:07:53.639 of the fuel determines the size of. 164 00:07:53.560 --> 00:07:57.399 The civilization, It really really does. So coke allows you 165 00:07:57.560 --> 00:08:00.920 to build the mega furnaces. The mega furnaces give you cheap, 166 00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:06.600 high quality steel in absolutely massive quantities, and that is 167 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:09.560 the gateway. This is the Domino effect that the paper describes. 168 00:08:09.759 --> 00:08:11.759 And I think it's worth walking through this chain because 169 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.000 it's fascinating just how tightly connected it all is. 170 00:08:14.120 --> 00:08:15.800 Okay, let's do it. Domino number one. 171 00:08:15.879 --> 00:08:20.279 Domino one, you have massive and critically accessible coal deposits 172 00:08:20.319 --> 00:08:20.879 on your planet. 173 00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:23.480 Okay, So step one is just the geology. You have 174 00:08:23.560 --> 00:08:24.920 to be born on a lucky planet. 175 00:08:24.959 --> 00:08:28.120 Domino two, that coal allows you to create coke, which 176 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:30.399 in turn allows you to create mass produced steel. 177 00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:32.919 Got it. Step two is the metallurgy. We now have 178 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:33.399 the steel. 179 00:08:33.639 --> 00:08:36.720 Domino three, what is the single most important thing you 180 00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:40.360 make with that new high strength steel? And it's not swords, 181 00:08:40.639 --> 00:08:43.799 it's not armor. It's drill bit drill bits. 182 00:08:43.840 --> 00:08:46.679 Okay, that's unexpected. I was thinking maybe steam engines or 183 00:08:46.759 --> 00:08:47.519 train tracks. 184 00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:50.240 Oh, those are hugely important, don't get me wrong. But 185 00:08:50.360 --> 00:08:53.240 the drill bit is the true pivot point of the 186 00:08:53.279 --> 00:08:57.799 twentieth century. Because why do you need high strength, industrial 187 00:08:57.840 --> 00:09:03.519 steel drill bits to get to Domino four deep pressurized 188 00:09:03.600 --> 00:09:06.480 geological reserves of oil and natural gas. 189 00:09:06.559 --> 00:09:09.360 Oh okay, I see where this is going. It's all 190 00:09:09.360 --> 00:09:09.960 about depth. 191 00:09:10.159 --> 00:09:12.960 It is exactly about depth. The coal that kicked off 192 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:16.440 our industrial revolution in places like England and Pennsylvania, it 193 00:09:16.519 --> 00:09:18.639 was often right at the surface. You could literally pick 194 00:09:18.679 --> 00:09:20.080 it up off the ground or dig it out with 195 00:09:20.080 --> 00:09:21.960 a shovel and a bucket. It was the low hanging 196 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:22.799 fruit of energy. 197 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:24.919 Right. You didn't need high tech to get the first. 198 00:09:24.759 --> 00:09:27.639 Energy source exactly. But oil isn't like that. You don't 199 00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:30.120 just you know, find a pool of crude oil sitting 200 00:09:30.159 --> 00:09:30.600 in the woods. 201 00:09:30.759 --> 00:09:33.240 No, it's deep underground, very deep. 202 00:09:33.720 --> 00:09:36.919 The crude oil that powered the twentieth century, the stuff 203 00:09:36.919 --> 00:09:40.399 that gave us cars and planes and massive electricity grids, 204 00:09:40.679 --> 00:09:45.159 is usually trapped thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of feet underground, 205 00:09:45.799 --> 00:09:49.200 and it's often under incredibly hard capstones of rock like 206 00:09:49.320 --> 00:09:51.799 granite or limestone. 207 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:52.759 And you can't get through that with a pick axe. 208 00:09:52.840 --> 00:09:54.759 You can't get to it with a pickaxe. You can't 209 00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:57.559 get to it with a wooden rig. You need hardened 210 00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:00.840 steel pipes and drill bits tipped with industry diamonds or 211 00:10:00.919 --> 00:10:04.399 tungsten carbide to puncture the earth deep enough to tap 212 00:10:04.440 --> 00:10:05.919 that incredible energy source. 213 00:10:05.960 --> 00:10:08.000 So if you don't have the coal to make the steel, 214 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:11.200 you can never drill deep enough to get the oil. 215 00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:13.279 And if you don't get the oil, you never get 216 00:10:13.279 --> 00:10:16.360 the internal combustion engine, You never get the petrochemical industry. 217 00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:19.080 You don't get the plastics and the insulators you need 218 00:10:19.120 --> 00:10:23.240 for advanced electronics, and ultimately you never get the radio telescope. 219 00:10:23.519 --> 00:10:26.159 So it really is a technological glass ceiling. You might 220 00:10:26.200 --> 00:10:28.480 have geniuses on your planet. They might know the math, 221 00:10:28.720 --> 00:10:31.279 they might understand the theory of radio waves. They might 222 00:10:31.320 --> 00:10:33.679 have the blueprints for a receiver sitting on a desk, 223 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:36.600 but you physically cannot build the machine. 224 00:10:36.840 --> 00:10:40.240 You can't because you lack the materials to extract the 225 00:10:40.279 --> 00:10:41.600 next level of materials. 226 00:10:41.679 --> 00:10:42.240 You're stuck. 227 00:10:42.519 --> 00:10:45.559 You are stuck in a wood and iron age. Maybe 228 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:49.799 you build great sailing ships, maybe you develop incredible clockwork mechanisms. 229 00:10:50.039 --> 00:10:53.759 Maybe you have breathtaking architecture using stone and basic metals, 230 00:10:54.159 --> 00:10:58.759 but you are not launching satellites. You are not building microprocessors. 231 00:10:59.200 --> 00:11:02.639 That is a wild realization. We usually think of technology 232 00:11:02.679 --> 00:11:05.320 as just being about knowledge. If we know how to 233 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:08.039 do it, we can build it. But this paper argues 234 00:11:08.159 --> 00:11:12.120 that technology is fundamentally material. It's resource dependent. 235 00:11:12.440 --> 00:11:15.399 Knowledge without the calorie density to actually apply it on 236 00:11:15.440 --> 00:11:19.000 a massive scale is just philosophy. The authors argue that 237 00:11:19.080 --> 00:11:22.799 fossil fuels and coal specifically are the only energy source 238 00:11:22.879 --> 00:11:25.399 that is both dense enough and accessible enough to a 239 00:11:25.399 --> 00:11:28.759 pre industrial society to bootstrap the whole system. Yeah, the 240 00:11:28.759 --> 00:11:31.519 starter fluid and the starter fluid for the engine of civilization. 241 00:11:31.759 --> 00:11:33.480 Without it, the engine never turns over. 242 00:11:33.600 --> 00:11:35.320 I want to push back on this though. I feel 243 00:11:35.360 --> 00:11:38.720 like we're being very deterministic here. We're essentially saying there 244 00:11:38.799 --> 00:11:42.200 is only one path, but surely the universe is full 245 00:11:42.240 --> 00:11:45.679 of variables. Let's play Devil's advocate, because I can hear 246 00:11:45.720 --> 00:11:47.799 the counter argument screaming in my head. Right now, go 247 00:11:47.919 --> 00:11:51.320 for it. We are humans. We were messy, we were inefficient, 248 00:11:51.399 --> 00:11:53.960 We burned the coal, We choked our cities with smog. 249 00:11:54.039 --> 00:11:57.200 We heated the planet. But couldn't an alien species just 250 00:11:57.320 --> 00:12:00.000 be better than us? 251 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:02.720 Alien hypothesis, the eco friendly. 252 00:12:02.440 --> 00:12:05.759 Et, right, couldn't they be smarter? Couldn't they look at 253 00:12:05.799 --> 00:12:08.279 a lump of coal, analyze the chemistry, realized it's going 254 00:12:08.320 --> 00:12:10.559 to mess up their atmosphere and just say, you know what, 255 00:12:10.679 --> 00:12:14.159 no thanks. Why couldn't they skip the entire dirty phase 256 00:12:14.159 --> 00:12:17.919 and go straight to wind, water, solar or geothermal? Why 257 00:12:18.000 --> 00:12:19.159 do they have to burn the rocks? 258 00:12:19.399 --> 00:12:22.240 It is a very very appealing thought. We want to 259 00:12:22.240 --> 00:12:25.799 believe that pollution isn't a necessary step. It comforts us 260 00:12:25.879 --> 00:12:28.840 to think there's a cleaner, smarter way. But the paper 261 00:12:28.960 --> 00:12:31.360 addresses this idea head on, and they argue it's a 262 00:12:31.360 --> 00:12:32.840 classic chicken and egg problem. 263 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:34.559 How so a chicken and egg? 264 00:12:34.759 --> 00:12:36.840 Okay, let's look at a modern wind turbine, one of 265 00:12:36.840 --> 00:12:41.159 those big three megawat ones. It looks clean, right, it's elegant, 266 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:45.759 It spins in the breeze, generates electricity, no smoke, beautiful, 267 00:12:46.360 --> 00:12:48.000 But what is it actually made of? 268 00:12:48.679 --> 00:12:51.799 Well, the tower is steel, massive sections of. 269 00:12:51.759 --> 00:12:55.960 Steel, hundreds of tons of high grade steel, which, as 270 00:12:55.960 --> 00:12:59.559 we've already established, needs a blast furnace burning coke to produce. 271 00:13:00.240 --> 00:13:01.240 What about the blades. 272 00:13:01.559 --> 00:13:03.799 I think there's some kind of composite. 273 00:13:03.759 --> 00:13:07.519 Fiberglass, usually carbon fiber or fiberglass resins. And where do 274 00:13:07.559 --> 00:13:10.320 those come from? They are petrochemicals. They are derived from 275 00:13:10.320 --> 00:13:11.559 oil and natural gas. 276 00:13:11.679 --> 00:13:13.559 So the blades of a clean wind turbine are made of. 277 00:13:13.559 --> 00:13:17.039 Oil essentially, yes, And that's not all what's inside? Then, 278 00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:19.759 to sell the generator at the top, it means incredibly 279 00:13:19.919 --> 00:13:24.519 powerful rare earth magnets like neodymium to work efficiently. Mining 280 00:13:24.559 --> 00:13:26.600 and refining rare earth metals is one of the most 281 00:13:26.720 --> 00:13:30.240 energy intensive and chemically harsh processes we have. You have 282 00:13:30.279 --> 00:13:32.919 to move literal mountains of rock to get just a 283 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:34.159 few kilograms of metal. 284 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:36.080 And how do you moot all that rock. 285 00:13:35.960 --> 00:13:39.159 With massive diesel power dump trucks and excavators which are 286 00:13:39.200 --> 00:13:41.440 made of steel and run on oil. Do you see 287 00:13:41.480 --> 00:13:45.120 the problem. You cannot build a wind turbine with stone tools. 288 00:13:45.559 --> 00:13:47.559 You can't even build it with blacksmith's tools from the 289 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:48.159 iron age. 290 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:50.559 You need the dirty machine to build the clean machine. 291 00:13:50.559 --> 00:13:52.639 That is the catch twenty two. To build the clean 292 00:13:52.759 --> 00:13:56.960 energy infrastructure of the twenty first century, solar panels, nuclear reactors, 293 00:13:57.039 --> 00:14:00.919 hydroelectric dams. You need an industrial base that is already 294 00:14:00.960 --> 00:14:05.840 capable of precision manufacturing, heavy global transport, and high heat metallurgy. 295 00:14:05.960 --> 00:14:07.440 It's like trying to build a computer when all you 296 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:08.639 have is a hammer and a log. 297 00:14:08.799 --> 00:14:11.960 Solar panels are another perfect example. To make a modern 298 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:15.919 photovoltaic cell, you need silicon that is ninety nine point 299 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:19.159 nine nine nine nine percent pure. We call it electronic 300 00:14:19.200 --> 00:14:22.159 grade silicon. To get silicon that pure, you have to 301 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:24.960 start with quartz sand and melt it down. Do you 302 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:27.200 have any idea how hot you have to get quartz 303 00:14:27.279 --> 00:14:28.000 sand to melt it. 304 00:14:28.080 --> 00:14:29.240 I'm guessing pretty hot. 305 00:14:29.200 --> 00:14:32.840 Around thirty five hundred degrees fahrenheit or about nineteen hundred celsius. 306 00:14:32.919 --> 00:14:34.600 You cannot do that with a wood fire. You can't 307 00:14:34.600 --> 00:14:37.720 do it with a magnifying glass. You need massive industrial 308 00:14:37.840 --> 00:14:41.039 arc furnaces that consume incredible amounts of electricity. 309 00:14:41.320 --> 00:14:44.960 And where does the electricity for those first furnaces come from? 310 00:14:45.360 --> 00:14:47.320 In a developing civilization. 311 00:14:47.399 --> 00:14:49.840 It has to come from something that burns. If you're 312 00:14:49.840 --> 00:14:53.039 a pre industrial society, you don't have the solar panels 313 00:14:53.080 --> 00:14:55.480 yet to power the furnace to make the solar panels, 314 00:14:55.720 --> 00:14:58.840 it's a paradox. You have to burn the stored sunlight 315 00:14:58.879 --> 00:15:02.080 of the past coal to build a technology that can 316 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:03.559 catch the sunlight of the present. 317 00:15:03.879 --> 00:15:06.480 So if you're an alien on a planet without coal, 318 00:15:07.279 --> 00:15:10.360 you might theoretically understand how his solar panel works. You 319 00:15:10.360 --> 00:15:13.720 could write down the physics, but you are trapped by 320 00:15:13.720 --> 00:15:16.519 the energy limitations of wood and muscle power. 321 00:15:16.679 --> 00:15:20.879 Exactly, you can never generate the massive surplus energy needed 322 00:15:20.919 --> 00:15:23.039 to build the next rung of the latter. You're stuck 323 00:15:23.080 --> 00:15:26.159 in an energy poverty loop. The authors are very clear 324 00:15:26.159 --> 00:15:29.519 on this point. An advanced technological civilization what they call 325 00:15:29.519 --> 00:15:32.720 an ATC, must pass through a fossil fuel phase. They 326 00:15:32.759 --> 00:15:34.360 believe there is likely no shortcut. 327 00:15:34.639 --> 00:15:38.399 Wow, that implies that every advanced civilization in the universe, 328 00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:40.799 if they exist, has had to deal with climate change. 329 00:15:40.919 --> 00:15:43.480 They've all had smog, They've all had their own version 330 00:15:43.519 --> 00:15:46.519 of Victorian London or twentieth century Pittsburgh. 331 00:15:46.720 --> 00:15:49.240 It becomes a universal filter. If you want to reach 332 00:15:49.279 --> 00:15:51.559 for the stars, you have to get your hands dirty first. 333 00:15:51.639 --> 00:15:55.039 Okay, so we've established the need an ATC needs coal 334 00:15:55.080 --> 00:15:57.440 to get off the ground. But here's the part that 335 00:15:57.559 --> 00:16:01.639 still confuses me. Coal is just dead plants right. 336 00:16:02.240 --> 00:16:04.879 Essentially, yes, it's fossilized terrestrial plant matter. 337 00:16:05.200 --> 00:16:09.080 So if we assume that life is somewhat common out there, 338 00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:11.639 if we assume there are other planets with forests or 339 00:16:11.720 --> 00:16:15.080 jungles or whatever their equivalent is, wouldn't they all have coal? 340 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:18.120 Why would this be a filter? If you have trees, 341 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:19.759 don't you automatically get coal? 342 00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:23.279 And here is where we pivot from engineering to geology. 343 00:16:23.519 --> 00:16:25.360 This is the part of the paper that really blew 344 00:16:25.440 --> 00:16:29.080 my mind. The answer is a resounding no. Just having 345 00:16:29.080 --> 00:16:32.480 trees does not guarantee you get coal. In fact, on Earth, 346 00:16:32.559 --> 00:16:34.759 the formation of the coal that powered our world was 347 00:16:34.799 --> 00:16:37.080 a bizarre anomaly. It wasn't the rule. It was the 348 00:16:37.080 --> 00:16:38.240 wild exception. 349 00:16:38.039 --> 00:16:40.759 An anomaly. I always thought it was just what happens 350 00:16:40.799 --> 00:16:42.320 when trees die and get buried. 351 00:16:42.679 --> 00:16:46.240 Not usually think about a forest today. A tree falls 352 00:16:46.240 --> 00:16:48.960 in the Amazon or even in your backyard. What happens 353 00:16:48.960 --> 00:16:49.799 to it? Over time? 354 00:16:50.200 --> 00:16:53.639 It rots, you know, termites eat it, fungi and bacteria 355 00:16:53.679 --> 00:16:56.320 break it down. Eventually it just becomes part of the soil. 356 00:16:56.559 --> 00:16:59.759 Exactly. The carbon is recycled. It's released back into the 357 00:16:59.799 --> 00:17:03.399 ape atmosphere as CO two by the decomposers. It doesn't 358 00:17:03.399 --> 00:17:07.240 get buried, it doesn't become a rock. But starting about 359 00:17:07.279 --> 00:17:10.359 three hundred and sixty million years ago, during the Carboniferous period, 360 00:17:10.519 --> 00:17:12.319 something very different happened. 361 00:17:12.559 --> 00:17:16.799 The Carboniferous the coal bearing period. I guess the name 362 00:17:16.839 --> 00:17:17.440 says it all. 363 00:17:17.599 --> 00:17:21.240 It really does. There were two massive, unique factors that 364 00:17:21.279 --> 00:17:24.200 align perfectly to create something like ninety percent of all 365 00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:27.279 the coal we used today. Ninety percent in one specific 366 00:17:27.319 --> 00:17:28.559 window of geologic time. 367 00:17:28.599 --> 00:17:29.720 Okay, what was factor one? 368 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:33.480 Factor one was biological trees had just invented a new 369 00:17:33.720 --> 00:17:35.720 revolutionary molecule called lignin. 370 00:17:36.079 --> 00:17:38.559 Lignin that's the stuff that makes wood hard, right, It's 371 00:17:38.599 --> 00:17:40.680 what allows a tree to grow one hundred feet tall 372 00:17:40.880 --> 00:17:43.119 without just flopping over like a piece of spaghetti. 373 00:17:43.319 --> 00:17:45.920 Correct. It's the structural armor of the plant world. It's 374 00:17:45.960 --> 00:17:49.759 incredibly tough stuff. When lignin first appeared in the evolutionary timeline, 375 00:17:49.799 --> 00:17:52.880 there was a problem. And here's the kicker. For about 376 00:17:52.920 --> 00:17:56.160 forty to sixty million years, nothing on Earth knew how 377 00:17:56.160 --> 00:17:56.559 to eat it. 378 00:17:56.880 --> 00:17:59.880 Wait, really, the bacteria couldn't digest it. The fun guy, 379 00:18:00.079 --> 00:18:00.799 the white rot. 380 00:18:00.799 --> 00:18:04.119 Fungi, the specific family of mushrooms and bacteria that are 381 00:18:04.160 --> 00:18:07.880 experts at breaking down wood today simply hadn't evolved yet. 382 00:18:08.000 --> 00:18:11.519 There was a huge evolutionary lag. So when these massive 383 00:18:11.640 --> 00:18:15.160 primitive trees died and fell over, they didn't rot, they 384 00:18:15.279 --> 00:18:16.400 just sat there. 385 00:18:16.519 --> 00:18:19.839 That is a wild image a world where dead trees 386 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:23.559 just pile up like garbage because nature hasn't invented the 387 00:18:23.599 --> 00:18:24.839 garbage disposal yet. 388 00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:28.240 That's a perfect analogy. Imagine walking through a forest where 389 00:18:28.279 --> 00:18:30.839 every single tree that had fallen for the last million 390 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:33.720 years is still there, just piled up hundreds of feet 391 00:18:33.759 --> 00:18:36.440 deep in some places. But that alone isn't enough to 392 00:18:36.440 --> 00:18:38.680 make coal. If they just sit on the surface, will 393 00:18:38.720 --> 00:18:41.720 eventually oxidize or dry out or burn in a forest fire. 394 00:18:41.920 --> 00:18:42.799 So you need to bury them. 395 00:18:42.839 --> 00:18:45.039 You need to bury them fast and deep. And that 396 00:18:45.079 --> 00:18:46.240 brings us to factor two. 397 00:18:46.759 --> 00:18:50.160 Plate tectonics, the moving continents. 398 00:18:49.680 --> 00:18:53.839 Specifically the collision of continents. During this exact time period, 399 00:18:54.000 --> 00:18:58.000 the super continent of Pangaea was forming. The ancient continents 400 00:18:58.000 --> 00:19:00.799 of Gondwana and Larussia were smashing into each other in 401 00:19:00.839 --> 00:19:01.680