# What if there were NEVER fossil fuels? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 29, 2012, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466 "2012-11-29T14:42:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/81 "2012-12-07T05:58:55Z")
> [@XT](#): > > You are still looking at overall energy usage and ignore the other applications of coal, natural gas and oil. Earlier I showed you a cite that showed that blacksmiths began to extensively use coal in the UK starting in the mid-1600’s, and gas lights were used in London starting around the 18th century. Coal wasn’t used extensively as a fuel source, according to your earlier cite, until the mid-19th century, and wood didn’t peak (again, according to your cite…from the US IIRC) until the same period, but saying that this proves that industrialization could happen without fossil fuels ignores the fact that you’d have to make up for the differences with something…and you’d have to start making up for those differences much earlier in history. > [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Ok charcoal has BTU of 9700 and coal has BTU of 10,000 - 15,500. At the low end, that can’t matter. At the high end… I have no idea. But just because coal was used for high value forging, doesn’t mean that it was _indispensable_. I honestly don’t know whether fossil fuels were “Nice to have” as opposed to “A requirement for meaningful technological advance” prior to 1700. 1. People will always use the lowest cost technology which for some applications has been coal for thousands of years. But that doesn’t imply that coal was _indispensable_ any more than obsidian is, which has also been used for thousands of years. I don’t see why you couldn’t have made up the difference with charcoal, given the modest quantities involved, prior to 1700. It’s a reasonable lower-quality substitute. I will concede that the industrial revolution probably wouldn’t have occurred in Britain though, if they didn’t have large deposits of coal. And Europe’s demographic crisis would have continued until perhaps the late 1800s. 1. I’ve demonstrated that industrial scale textile production was established without the use of coal in c. 1810-40 in Lowell, MA. > [@](#): > > I showed you that the Romans used coal and oil…as did the Egyptians…as did the Persians and Greeks and Chinese. So, take that away and they would either have had a lower energy budget overall OR they would have had to rely more heavily from a much earlier time on alternatives, which means mainly wood. I don’t want to be a dick though: we would have to lay out some serious historical energy budgeting to see whether I am (ha ha) blowing smoke. You might be right. > [@](#): > > Your argument seems to be that no one used any fossil fuels in any significant way until the mid to late 19th century, then BAM! it burst on the scene and took over from wood. That’s not how it worked, either with fossil fuels or with any market. Actually my argument is that substitution elasticities are manageable. For metals, this is a reasonable though hardly airtight assumption (Nordhaus did the legwork here, IIRC). For coal-oil-natural-gas vs. biomass-wind-solar-hydro the assumption is more than a little heroic. Then there’s the chemical industry’s feedstock problem. > [@](#): > > Even leaving aside the other technical aspects and how the government with a much lower economy could or would have spent vast amounts of money on what would basically be a complete shot in the dark for these people, how would you get the materials to build nuclear power plants? Where would the industrial levels of steel and stainless steel (as well as all the other things you’d need to build even a rudimentary nuclear power plant) come from? Charcoal. And plant genetics: in our world trees haven’t had too much of this, because of their plentiful supply and long maturation. In the other world, there would be a lot more interest in bamboo, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/82 "2012-12-07T06:10:55Z")
FWIW, Tuckerfan built a 1800F - 2200F furnace powered by charcoal and a hair dryer. That’s hot enough to melt aluminum, copper (barely) and silver though not iron. But during the middle ages, the typical fuel for iron was [charcoal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ferrous_metallurgy). ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2012, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/83 "2012-12-07T13:44:12Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Peat is not a fossil fuel. Let’s address this first. [Tis so.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peat) > [@](#): > > Peat is not generally regarded as a renewable source of energy, due to its extraction rate in industrialized countries far exceeding its slow regrowth rate of 1mm per year,[5] and as it is also reported that peat regrowth takes place only in 30-40% of peatlands. > > It is for these reasons that the UN do not classify peat as ‘renewable’ but as a fossil fuel.[7] Similarly the IPCC do not classify peat amongst renewable biomass or biofuels, due to the length of time for peat to re-accumulate after harvesting, but as a fossil fuel. And looking at the definition of fossil fuels, > [@](#): > > Fossil fuels are fuels formed by natural processes such as anaerobic decomposition of buried dead organisms. or even better, let’s look at the OP > [@](#): > > yet never could ever encounter any fossil fuels of any description, be they coal, petroleum, or organic gas, or even stuff like **peat** then for this thread, peat is a fossil fuel. > [@](#): > > The aggregate data indicates that industrialization preceded high energy usage. The Lowell example shows that you can have industrialization without the use of coal. The aggregate is [del]not what’s important.[/del] completely meaningless in the case where the cost of transportation makes impractical and cost prohibitive the transporting wood, such overland for longer distances such as the 20 to 25 km limit suggested in the quote above. All the uncut trees in Russia would not warm the poor in the 16th century London or fire the blacksmiths’ fires. Nor could continents of forests fuel Hollands development during or even prior to its Golden Age. Without fossil fuels (including peat and coal) these two centers of growth in the pre-industrial ages would have had crippling energy shortages that would have been showstoppers. The growth of large cities in Western and Northern European cities was dependent on thermal heat for heating, cooking, blacksmiths, manufacturing bricks, etc. and could not have sustained as much population without fossil fuels. You raise the question of why wouldn’t there simply be a switch to charcoal. It’s possible, but the cost had to be inexpensive enough to allow this, and transportation costs in the pre-industrial age would not have permitted this for these key centers back when they started using peat and coal. The easily-accessed coal was already exhausted in parts of English by the 13th century when they started mining. Peat was also a major source of energy for the Dutch about the same period. Shipping long distances was too expensive for wood as a thermal resource in the 13th and 14th centuries. If fossil fuels had never existed, then the historical development of London and Holland would not have happened. Without this alternative, then these (and presumably other major cities, although I hadn’t read anything about other areas specifically) would have grown and developed at a lower rate. The percentage of fossil fuels out of the total energy budget is low because the bulk of the thermal consumption was by farmers for heating and cooking. This can be seen by the percentage of the population which was rural and which were peasants. However, the economic and technical progress was occurring in the cities, which were more dependent on fossil fuels for part of their thermal needs. Remove fossil fuels and the very groups which are providing the advancements are the ones which would be the hardest hit. The dependence on fossil fuels occurred much earlier than the extensive sea trading Jared Diamond, in _Guns, Steel and Germs_, makes a compelling case that technological development is not inevitable, but depends on various circumstances, as evidenced by the wheel not being used in the ancient Americas even though they apparently understood the concept. So much of the advancements in technology prior to the industrial revolution came because of cheap fossil fuels, it seems much more likely than not that things would not have progressed to in industrial revolution level of technology. Scholars point out that among the factors allowing the Agricultural Revolution in England were such technical advances as better plows made by pig iron made by burning coal. While it’s possible that this may have occurred without fossil fuels, again it’s not necessarily the case. There are just so many things which were dependent on inexpensive fossil fuel, that it just seems to me unlikely that everything would have been invented without it. Finding an example or two of how an industry could be recreated using water power is not a compelling argument that it would have developed naturally any more than pointing out that the wheel was widely used in the Old World so it could have been developed in the New World. The case against nuclear is pretty clear. The Manhattan project cost the equivalent of US$20 billion dollars, something which an agricultural country with major cities only on the coasts and along major rivers would not be able to afford, even had the technology developed that far. The energy required to mining, extraction, and processing of the ore would have been beyond the ability to supply with charcoal and the processing requires chemicals such as ion-exchange resins, so unless the Professor can create a chemical industry out of thin air, there are just too many barriers. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/84 "2012-12-09T02:34:49Z")
Good correction on peat, **TokyoBayer**. Ignorance fought. Things aren’t looking too good for the technological optimists: we appear to have taken out the top 2 candidates for initiating an industrial revolution: Britain (who did it in this world) and the Netherlands (who is considered a top contender for the honor). We are left with places with access to firewood via water and canals, as well as places needing less of the stuff: recall that Italy used about 1/4 that of Britain. If you permit me to grasp at straws though, I’ll note that James Watt invented his engine at the University of Glasgow -not London-, a locale that was situated the River Clyde, as well as the Monkland Canal, built in 1795 in order to access iron-ore and -er- coal mines located elsewhere…never mind. Over in the US, there was technological development in the form of the cotton gin, good rivers, a willingness to invest in canals, and early textile industrialization in Lowell, MA whose blueprints were basically copied from the British textile industry, now running on the air where the coal used to be located. Still, methinks that would be candidate #3. The US had plentiful wood and water power. ## Portugal? > [@](#): > > The case against nuclear is pretty clear. The Manhattan project cost the equivalent of US$20 billion dollars, something which an agricultural country with major cities only on the coasts and along major rivers would not be able to afford, even had the technology developed that far. I’m wondering whether a fission reactor has milder requirements than an A-Bomb. I know that fission reactors have occurred [naturally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor) though I see this took place 1.7 billion years ago. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/85 "2012-12-09T02:51:25Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I’m wondering whether a fission reactor has milder requirements than an A-Bomb. I know that fission reactors have occurred [naturally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor) though I see this took place 1.7 billion years ago. To build a fission reactor you need some sort of moderator. This is usually either heavy water or graphite- and natural graphite doesn’t work, it has to be synthetic graphite almost completely free of even traces of boron; graphite is synthesized in electric-arc furnaces. Even if you already _ **knew** _ exactly how to build an electric generator, doing it with only the technology base available in the sixteenth century would be a heroic task; inventing it in the first place might be impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/86 "2012-12-09T04:36:13Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > To build a fission reactor you need some sort of moderator. This is usually either heavy water or graphite- and natural graphite doesn’t work, it has to be synthetic graphite almost completely free of even traces of boron; graphite is synthesized in electric-arc furnaces. > > Even if you already _ **knew** _ exactly how to build an electric generator, doing it with only the technology base available in the sixteenth century would be a heroic task; inventing it in the first place might be impossible. And you’d have to have a reason to build a fission reactor. Nuclear reactors aren’t mobile the way steam engines are. So their main use is going to be turning turbines and generating electricity. But electricity is only useful if you’ve got an infrastructure set up to run on electricity. If you just went out and built a nuclear reactor, who would you sell your electricity to? And as for setting up the infrastructure to use electricity, how are you going to convince people to do that before you have any means of generating electricity? And even if you’re an incredible visionary who can see in your mind’s eye the entire electrical grid before it’s been built and are such a charismatic speaker that you’re able to sell people on your vision and convince them to build it on your say so, you come back to the issue of how you’re going to build it. How do you build the entire grid you need to operate your nuclear generated electric system when you won’t be able to use the system until after it’s build? ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2012, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/87 "2012-12-09T04:52:35Z")
Aluminum production would be sufficient reason to build a nuclear reactor. Moreover, the initial electrical grid could be pretty small, enough to cover an industrial park. That said, TokyoBayer has demolished London and Amsterdam: if he carpet bombs Paris, we lose the Enlightenment. And without that, my dreams of charcoal powered nukes and gerbil propelled automobiles will all be for naught. ☹ He must be stopped! ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/88 "2012-12-10T02:13:37Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > I’m wondering whether a fission reactor has milder requirements than an A-Bomb. I know that fission reactors have occurred [naturally](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor) though I see this took place 1.7 billion years ago. There are sometimes you hope that you get a particular question. About the [Manhattan Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project) > [@](#): > > The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (roughly equivalent to $25.8 billion as of 2012. > > Over 90% of the cost was for building factories and producing the fissionable materials, with less than 10% for development and production of the weapons. This was without the added burden of attempting to do everything with 16th century technology and without seam engines, which simply would be impossible. Read about the [separation process here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project#Centrifuges). ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/89 "2012-12-10T02:18:08Z")
Sheesh, to be clear I never claimed that nukes could be built with 16th century technology. I claimed that Lowell showed that you can have industrialization grounded on hydro power (getting us up to 1840) and that theoretical physics wasn’t especially labor, capital or energy intensive until the 1930s-40s. All that said, my argument has been creamed. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/90 "2012-12-10T02:36:14Z")
For completeness I’ll note that weapons grade uranium generally uses U235 shares above 85% (although 20% can be considered sufficient). [Enriched uranium - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highly_enriched_uranium#Highly_enriched_uranium_.28HEU.29) In contrast nuclear power plants can use shares in the 4.4% range or less. [http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf13.html](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf13.html) Presumably creating nuclear fuel is a little easier. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2012, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/91 "2012-12-10T02:38:22Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > All that said, my argument has been creamed. [I’ll give you that.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leeds_butter_churn.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/93 "2012-12-12T15:29:09Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > That said, TokyoBayer has demolished London and Amsterdam: if he carpet bombs Paris, we lose the Enlightenment. And without that, my dreams of charcoal powered nukes and gerbil propelled automobiles will all be for naught. ☹ > > He must be stopped! Bye bye Paris. And Italy as well. Not for the use of fossil fuels, but for their attitude toward the enlightenment. Here’s an interesting paper which argues that the Catholic influence was detrimental to > [@](#): > > These reactions to the English version of the new science played out in somewhat different ways across Catholic Europe. This anti-Enlightenment mentality claimed Spain and Italy as its first and most obvious victims. Italy, the country which played a crucial role in generating the science that eventually led to the invention of modern steam engines, came under the strongest grip of papal authority to the point of putting on trial proponents of the new science in Naples in the 1690s. The intellectual climate was such that rendered it difficult for individual proponents of the new science to become acquainted with scientific developments elsewhere. But it would certainly render it virtually impossible for a culture of applied mechanics to be formed, what Jacob calls the “cultural packaging” of science, i.e., “the informal learning, the mechanical illustrations, the hands-on use of devices, the relatively egalitarian philosophical society.” > > (. . .) > > In the case of France there were forces at play which rendered more ambivalent its placement in the context of these cultural wars. Papal authority was less imposing because there was a portion of the French clergy resenting pontifical interference on its internal ecclesiastical affairs; but there was an even stronger resentment against Protestant ideas, culminating in the Edict of Nantes, and their alliance with the new science. Interestingly, this same paper provides more information on the importance of coal in England (which had become more important than wood by 1620) and shows how the Continent was losing ground in metal production. In the Continental America, it looks like coal played an important part in the newly developing metal industry. > [@](#): > > n the early colonial days the settlers used wood for fuel, and charcoal for the forge and smelting-works. Coal, however, was found in Rhode Island in 1768, and mined for use. The great bituminous seam near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania was struck in 1784. Previous to this time coal, was found in quantities in Virginia; and canals were cut, connecting parallel rivers to facilitate its transportation. By 1789, quite an export trade with adjacent colonies had been built up. Shipbuilding and metallurgy had a terrible affect on forests. > [@](#): > > Shipbuilding was also closely intertwined with another forest consuming industry: metallurgy, especially iron production. Iron comprised the weaponry and structural support aboard many sea vessels. Because the production of iron required high temperatures, the demand for firewood grew to almost insatiable proportions. Thus, the amount of timber invested in shipbuilding included more than just the lumber for the hulls. As David Morse points out, the trend in metallurgy history dictated that “wherever ironmaking took over . . . it did away with the forest” (Morse). In effect, shipbuilding and its association with iron production impacted the forest landscape two-fold. > > The deforestation effects of increased shipbuilding was most visible in the change of Great Britain’s landscape during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Those who traveled across Ireland at this time reported that one could ride all day and not see a single tree, an image that contrasts sharply with the carpet of trees that covered the area only centuries before (Brown, Terry). Of course, the price the environment paid for shipbuilding was not merely aesthetic. The loss of wind protection afforded by trees increased soil erosion on English farms (Brown, Terry). Following the construction of the British Navy during the reign of Elizabeth I, poor farmers in need of fuel burned straw and dried manure, robbing the soil of nutrients and further decreasing farmland quality (Brown, Terry). Undoubtedly, the ecosystems that once thrived in European forests crumbled as their habitats disappeared. The lack of watershed protection also lead to increase stream erosion and altered the path of many waterways (“Deforestation”). Quite apparently, shipbuilding’s effacing of entire forest landscapes cost the European environment dearly. Going on > [@](#): > > At first, the abundance of New England wood seemed endless; by 1880, firewood had surpassed all other energy sources and reached its employment peak (“Ancient undisturbed repose”). Soon, however, the immortality of New England forests was spoiled by the appearance of deforestation indicators in the environment. These effects mirrored those of the European environment, including severe soil and stream erosion. This was even with using coal for metallurgy. Without coal, the deforestation would have occurred sooner. Basically, even with the discovery of forests in America, there wasn’t enough timber to support growth. Mines were a major problem, even in the 16th century in New Spain. > [@](#): > > In New Spain, smelting greatly outpaced other fuel wood usages such as domestic heating, or lime- and brick-making. The amount of biomass burned for domestic purposes was something on the order of five kilograms of firewood per person-day according to Sherburne Cook.7 At these levels, a single mine could consume well over twenty times the amount of fuel-wood burned by a town of five- to six-thousand inhabitants.8 By the late eighteenth century, New Spain’s silver industry greatly outpaced other metal processing industries in Europe. It surpassed the consumption rates of the English iron-making industry by a factor of three. This was the same industry that helped render England the least wooded country of the European forest zone (5 percent wood cover) by the end of the eighteenth century. > [@](#): > > Other examples of how metal processing denuded local landscapes also can be found well after the colonial period. During the 1880s bonanza at Tombstone, Arizona, woodcutting depleted forest stands within a sixty kilometer radius of the mines.12 By 1902, the copper mine at Nacozari in northern Sonora, Mexico, had consumed more than 5,300 square kilometers of vegetation from its environs. It’s conclusively shown that the world’s forest lands would not have supported an industrial revolution no matter where it occurred. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466/94 "2012-12-12T16:11:53Z")
And [another quote](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deforestation_in_the_United_States). > [@](#): > > Forest cover in the Eastern United States reached its lowest point in roughly 1872 with about 48 percent compared to the amount of forest cover in 1620. And it looks like the US did depend on coal. > [@](#): > > The antebellum decades saw the coal industry emerge as a critical component of America’s industrial revolution. Anthracite coal became a fixture in seaboard cities up and down the east coast of North America – as cities grew, so did the demand for coal. To the west, Pittsburgh and Ohio colliers shipped their coal as far as Louisville, Cincinnati, or New Orleans. As wood, animal, and waterpower became scarcer, mineral fuel usually took their place in domestic consumption and small-scale manufacturing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-if-there-were-never-fossil-fuels/642466.md?page=4)