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Re:536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018) by Someone on Thursday June 18, 2020 @06:10PM (#23568697)
I would think the combination of windmills and wood supplies should almost always provide a (ssllooww) recovery path.

There will plenty of metals on the surface. Use the wood to melt iron. Use iron to make saws. Use saws to cut trees into beams and planks. Use beams and planks to build windmills. Use windmills to generate power and electricity. Etc.

Using coal and oil we went through the part from using mills for power to where we are now in about 250 years. On the one hand, if knowledge is retained, that can be sped up. On the other hand, it will be a lot harder to go through that process without coal and oil.

I would guess the net effect will be that it will take longer, as one of the effects of not having coal and oil will be lower yields in agriculture and, hence, a much smaller world population that also has to make a bigger effort to produce food.

Re:536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018) by sigstoat on Thursday June 18, 2020 @09:12PM (#23570003)
> There will plenty of metals on the surface.

we've even brought a lot of them closer to the surface, refined them, and alloyed them!