# Would an advanced alien civilization need oil to reach us **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 3, 2010, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462 "2010-07-03T22:20:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2010, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/21 "2010-07-04T15:56:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I suggest you read his wiki page. Although Asimov’s early writing career is marked by known- or suspected-impossible sci-fi, he’d largely tapered off by 1958, spending more of his time (and indeed the last 30+ years of his life) writing nonfiction and more realistic fiction. I will guarantee that I’ve read more Asimov nonfiction than you have. My point was that he wrote differently when writing fiction than when writing nonfiction. Virtually all his fiction writing was loopy space opera. I am genuinely afraid to ask, but I have to plunge into the deep end of this pool: what is Asimov’s later fiction career could you conceivably be thinking of when you call it realistic? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2010, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/22 "2010-07-04T19:20:39Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > My point was that he wrote differently when writing fiction than when writing nonfiction. Virtually all his fiction writing was loopy space opera. > > I am genuinely afraid to ask, but I have to plunge into the deep end of this pool: what is Asimov’s later fiction career could you conceivably be thinking of when you call it realistic? You forgot a qualifier in your post and ignored a qualifier in mine. When you said “Asimov’s work did consist of loopy space opera”, I merely point out that it would be more accurate to say his _early_ work did, or his work _partly_ consisted of loopy space opera, assuming his “work” to be his total output as a writer. And the qualifier I had in my post was _more_ realistic fiction, by which I meant, among other things, the sixty-six _Black Widowers_ mystery stories he started writing in 1971, none of which (as far as I know) relied on science-fictiony elements. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2010, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/23 "2010-07-04T22:39:14Z")
Here’s the thing. A nuclear power plant is just a big steam engine. The only difference between a nuclear power plant and a coal fired power plant is the source of heat for boiling the water. For coal, you burn coal. For nuclear, you react uranium. It’s easy to forget how quickly we went from the horse and buggy era to the nuclear bomb. Marie Curie was experimenting with radionuclides in 1898. How was her work dependent on cheap oil? Automobiles were rare curiosities at that time. If petroleum had never been exploited, how would the Curie’s work have been slowed down? Automobiles supplanted horse-drawn transport in the five decades between the discovery of radium and 1945, but nuclear research was never dependent on cars or airplanes. You don’t need petroleum powered automobiles to build a nuclear reactor. Coal-fired steam engines were used to generate electricity, drive trains, and steamships. You could use nuclear reactors for exactly the same work although nuclear trains probably aren’t such a great idea, but there are plenty of nuclear-powered ships out there. You can’t run an airplane with a steam engine, but there’s nothing magical about petroleum, there are dozens of ways to produce liquid fuel from coal or biomass, the only reason we don’t use these is that crude oil is much cheaper than alternatives. Steam and electric cars competed against IC cars for years, but finally lost out because gasoline could be refined extremely cheaply. The last Stanley Steamer was sold in 1924. This was only 15 years before the start of WWII and the real dawn of mechanized warfare. It’s very easy for me to imagine an industrial civilization on par with ours that doesn’t use a drop of petroleum. Instead of suburbs and private cars, there would be dense developments served by rail and streetcars. Farmers wouldn’t use diesel tractors, they’d use steam tractors or electric tractors. Air travel would be more expensive, since fuels would have to be manufactured. People would still have radio and TV and computers, in fact they’d use these more because transportation would be less flexible. Plastics would be more expensive, but every polymer available today could be manufactured from coal and biomass feedstock. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/24 "2010-07-05T03:01:04Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Air travel would be more expensive …and mostly by Zeppelins… ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/25 "2010-07-05T15:34:22Z")
I disagree. Without oil we’d still use regular airplanes, we’d just manufacture the jet fuel. We’d probably have used zeppelins longer, but the superiority of conventional aircraft is obvious, even if you have to pay higher fuel prices. The real substitute for air travel is high speed rail. > **[Synthetic fuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_fuel)** > > Synthetic fuel or synfuel is a liquid fuel, or sometimes gaseous fuel, obtained from syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, in which the syngas was derived from gasification of solid feedstocks such as coal or biomass or by reforming of natural gas. > Common ways for refining synthetic fuels include the Fischer–Tropsch conversion,\[better source needed\] methanol to gasoline conversion,\[better source needed\] or direct coal liquefaction.\[better source needed\] > The term 'synthetic fuel' or... > **[Aviation biofuel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_biofuel)** > > An aviation biofuel or bio-jet fuel or bio-aviation fuel (BAF) is a biofuel used to power aircraft and is said to be a sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). The International Air Transport Association (IATA) considers it a key element to reducing the carbon footprint within the environmental impact of aviation. Aviation biofuel could help decarbonize medium- and long-haul air travel generating most emissions, and could extend the life of older aircraft types by lowering their carbon footprint Biofuels... ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2010, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/26 "2010-07-05T16:42:27Z")
They might need [whale oil](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=569607)! Some people believe _our_ space program depends on it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kilmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a6a055/32.png) [@Kilmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kilmore)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/27 "2010-07-06T03:33:44Z")
Just a mild political / ecological snark, but an alien civilization that developed like ours would have had to ditch powering their machines with mineral goop a long time before they could think about interstellar transport. ---
**Author:** ![CutterJohn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/91b2a8/32.png) [@CutterJohn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CutterJohn)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/28 "2010-07-06T05:06:44Z")
> [@Kilmore](#): > > Just a mild political / ecological snark, but an alien civilization that developed like ours would have had to ditch powering their machines with mineral goop a long time before they could think about interstellar transport. If we developed a fusion powered warp drive tomorrow, we’d still be using coal fired plants for the next few decades. Even longer perhaps. Having the capacity for something does not make it cheap or effective, or without other drawback, and does not replace massive amounts of infrastructure overnight. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/29 "2010-07-06T16:35:21Z")
> [@fuzzypickles](#): > > Alien spaceships would probably use [Vacuum Energy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy). > > At least, that’s how I got here. From that article: > [@](#): > > The energy of a cubic centimeter of empty space has been calculated to be [10^-19 joule], based on the upper limit of the cosmological constant. However, in both Quantum Electrodynamics (QED)and Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED), consistency with the requirement of Lorentz invariance and with the magnitude of the Planck Constant leads to the much larger figure of 10^107 Joules per cubic centimeter So, the vacuum energy density is either 10^-19 J/cm^3 or an amount 10^126 times greater? I’m guessing your alien civilization has narrowed that estimate down somewhat… ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/30 "2010-07-06T18:37:45Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > So, the vacuum energy density is either 10^-19 J/cm^3 or an amount 10^126 times greater? I’m guessing your alien civilization has narrowed that estimate down somewhat… Oh you scientists and your constant need for precision. C’mon, they roughly know the vacuum energy, give or take a googol or so. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/31 "2010-07-06T19:04:07Z")
I don’t think so. One of the biggest problems we have as a species is too much thinking inside the box. Since we only have our progression to compare against, then many people extrapolate that there isn’t any other logical way to have achieved our current state. We also tend to think that we know every bloody thing about the universe when we’ve only just begun really poking at physics and the like. An alien civilization would be dealing with an alien set of elements, geology, biology, and chemistry. They may well resemble our own, but they might also be very different or even completely exotic. They might have pursued a biological program in which they grow buildings and transport. They might see in different light spectrum or sense magnetic fields, allowing them to make discoveries it’s going to take us forever to achieve. Maybe their near orbital space has all sorts of crud floating about int that ours does not. Maybe they have naturally occurring super conducters in large deposits. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/32 "2010-07-06T20:05:40Z")
They will have exactly the same elements we do on earth, since elementary particles are the same throughout the universe and the only thing that distinguishes elements is the number of protons and neutrons each element has. ---
**Author:** ![Acid\_Lamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Acid\_Lamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acid_Lamp)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2010, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462/33 "2010-07-06T20:16:43Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > They will have exactly the same elements we do on earth, since elementary particles are the same throughout the universe and the only thing that distinguishes elements is the number of protons and neutrons each element has. True, but that doesn’t mean that we have every arrangement possible here on earth, nor that we have discovered all of them, or their properties. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-an-advanced-alien-civilization-need-oil-to-reach-us/545462.md?page=1)