But here’s the rub: Coppice technology was already well developed in pre-industrial England. It couldn’t keep up with the rapid pace of society. The core problem is that even if trees are managed well, they still need to be integrated with other land uses.

Conflict occurs - mainly over agricultural land. The twin dilemma of development is that as the population grows, people need more farms to provide food and more wood to provide energy, and these two needs compete for the same land.

In our own history, here's how it went: Starting in the mid-16th century, Britain responded to this dilemma by mining massive coal mines—essentially tapping the energy of ancient forests beneath the ground without reducing agricultural output. An acre

The energy produced by a small forest in a year is equivalent to 5-10 tons of coal, but the latter can be dug directly from the ground much faster than waiting for the forest to grow back.

It is this thermal energy supply limitation that will become the biggest problem for societies without fossil energy to try to industrialize. This is true in our post-apocalyptic world, or in any hypothetical world that fails to utilize fossil energy. A society without these conditions

To achieve industrialization, efforts would have to be focused on specific, highly advantageous natural environments—not islands riddled with coal mines, like England in the 18th century, but fast-flowing rivers, like Scandinavia or Canada.

It provides hydropower energy and sustainable thermal energy provided by vast vegetation.

Still, an industrial revolution without coal reserves would be, to say the least, very difficult. Today our use of fossil fuels is actually growing, and many of the reasons for concern are too familiar to need repeating here. Towards Low Carbon

The economy is imperative. But at the same time, we should also know how these accumulated thermal energy reserves have supported us step by step today. If they had never been there, people might have taken a difficult path and used renewable energy and sustainable

Using biofuels to slowly advance mechanization may eventually succeed—but it may not. We had better hope that the future of our own civilization is optimistic, because we may have exhausted the energy needed for any successor society to follow in our footsteps.

All resources.
Chapter completed!