this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2026
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Much like how when automobiles were new, you could prove they weren't actually viable because you still needed horse carts to haul the iron ore, and the coal to smelt it from the mines. The idea that someday the entire fleet of mining and transportation equipment would use internal combustion engines seemed quite impossible.
Probably there's no way to transition to electric mining equipment, electric smelters, electric battery recycling facilities, and electric transport fleets.
Some would call it a bootstrap problem but it's possible you're right and there's no way to transition from one suite of existing technologies to a new, cheaper one.
We know it is fundamentally feasible, photosynthetic organisms can do it with just local resources, with reasonable replication rate and some excess sufficient to sustain the global ecosystem.
However, we don't know how to do that, and, worse, we have stopped pursuing that development route. Some dream that we'll get general artificial intelligence Real Soon Now which can bootstrap molecular nanotechnology in that short time frame that we have left.
Could happen, but that probability is pretty damn low.
Sorry, I suspect my sarcasm may have passed you by. They already make electric mining/construction equipment, solar powered factories and recycling facilities. Steel smelting can be done with grid-connected electric arc furnaces or solar furnaces. The production of solar panels and wind turbines may not be fully detached from oil for some time, but then horses played an important role in heavy industry for decades alongside gasoline and diesel trucks and steel hulled sail ships were still hauling grain well into the 1950s. These transitions are always uneven and the tipping point can be hard to spot even with hindsight, let alone while it's happening.
Electrification can replace more and more links in the chain until the majority or even entirety of the supply chain is no longer reliant on fossil fuels. Even if those components are made with the use of fossil fuels - just like automobiles made with metal hauled by horses could replace those horses.
Gigantism in mining trucks like Belaz 75710 https://www.lectura-specs.com/en/model/construction-machinery/rigid-dump-trucks-belaz/75710-11738579 with 360 tons and 1.7 MW diesel-electric hybrids -- which frequently run 24/7 -- is due to ore grade depletion. You might want to run the numbers of how a sodium-ion mining truck would look like, and how long it would have to recharge. Notice the tires, they're made from at least partly synthetic rubber. What you don't see is lubricants, also synthetic. Polymers, synthetic. Notice the amount of structural steel. Electric arc vacuum ovens for steel recycling exist, but nobody runs them on 100% renewable. That's because of the battery buffering needed. Look at aluminium -- current electrolytic melt processes need 24/7 energy.
Solar PV with battery buffers (necessary for 24/7 industrial processes) has ERoEI of less than 4 which is insufficient to maintain a complex industrial society. You can try to substitute some of that with small-batch fast (running just during the day or whenever the wind blows) processes, but that will be the minority.
You mention horses a lot -- these will be needed again, after the industrial age. And slaves, and ships made of wood. Which will do fine in a world with maybe 100 million people. Maybe a lot less.