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Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? by carry_bit on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @01:11PM (#20451911)
I wonder how difficult it would be leapfrog oil and go straight to nuclear power.
Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? by TeMPOraL on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @01:42PM (#20452219)
If any necessary and non-substitutable material or equipment is based on petroleum chemistry, then we won't be able to do that. I'd love some nuclear engineering experts to chime in on it here; my uneducated guess is that it's extremely unlikely that there isn't a hard petroleum dependency somewhere in there.
Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? by rdtwo on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @10:49PM (#20455980)
Just think of all the protective equipment. What do you think it’s made of?
Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? by Animats on Wednesday July 17, 2019 @12:00AM (#20456316)
The coal-powered steam locomotive era and the nuclear power era overlap. We almost did go from coal to nuclear. Especially in the UK, which had little domestic oil or gas in the 1950s.
Re:Why did we wait so long for the bicycle? by jpindar on Tuesday July 16, 2019 @08:03PM (#20455127)
I think it would be a lot easier to go with internal combustion of ethanol and biodiesel (and possibly wood gas) first.