Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Imagine A World Where The Internal Combustion Engine Didn’t Exist
The Federalist ^ | 02/20/2024 | Chuck Devore

Posted on 02/20/2024 9:46:35 AM PST by SeekAndFind

In 2084, humanity had finally turned its back on burning the ancient remains of a bygone era, only to find itself shackled to the caprices of the sun and wind.

In the year 2084, the world had reached an equilibrium of sorts — a strange, unbalanced balance that no one had aimed for but had settled into, like dust after a storm. The skies, once bustling with the egalitarian hustle of air travel, had quieted down, reserved now for the sleek, whispering jets of the elites: politicians who crafted the future from the clouds; entertainment superstars like Brittany Quick, whose laughter filled the air more than any long-gone bird’s song; and tech billionaires, the new deities who decided what the world needed next.

Below them, the world moved on wheels and rails, in silent electric vehicles and trains that snaked through the landscapes, their schedules dictated not by the clock, but by the whims of the power grid.

Electricity, the lifeblood of this new era, was in perennially short supply. The irony was palpable. Humanity had finally turned its back on burning the ancient remains of a bygone era, only to find itself shackled to the caprices of the sun and the wind. The earth, a patchwork of solar arrays and wind turbines, no longer sang with the chirps of birds or the flutter of bats. They had vanished, casualties of progress, leaving behind a burgeoning population of rodents and insects that feasted on the crops, unchallenged. The morning air was filled with the mechanical thrumming of turbine blades, a requiem for the lost melodies of nature — and to some, a maddening source of migraines.

Far from the public eye, a conflict raged in the heart of Congo, where the earth bled rare minerals essential for the batteries that powered the new world. Here, child laborers, who had long toiled under the yoke of Chinese corporate overlords, rose in a violent revolt that claimed thousands of lives, threatening stretched supply chains. The news of this distant war barely rippled across the surface of the global consciousness; it was drowned out by the latest celebrity scandal or political maneuver.

In a small town, far removed from the corridors of power and the battlefields of resource wars, an inventor toiled away in obscurity. In his cluttered garage, amid relics of a bygone technological era, he had resurrected a forbidden marvel — the internal combustion engine. This new vehicle, a contraption pieced together with ingenuity and defiance, promised a revolution. It was lighter than any electric vehicle, cheaper to build, gentler on the roads, could be refueled in just a 10th of the time, and was capable of going distances that electric dreams couldn’t match. More importantly, it asked for none of the rare earth elements that blood was spilled for, while requiring half the steel that had to be torn from the Earth’s crust.

The demand for such a thing would be enormous, the inventor knew — making him rich and famous — but also improving the lives of billions of people around the world, tapping the virtually limitless reserves of petroleum he knew to be abundant in his nation and many others around the world.

To his friends, the inventor was a madman, dabbling in technologies that “Science” had condemned. They whispered warnings, their voices tinged with fear and awe, cautioning him against attracting the gaze of the “Office of the Chief Science Consensus Enforcement Division.” But the inventor, driven by visions of a different future, pressed on. His creation was not just a vehicle; it was a statement, a challenge to the status quo, a beacon of hope for those who had been grounded by the new world order.

The end, when it came, was neither grand nor dramatic. It was as mundane as the arrest of a single individual can be. The inventor, caught in the act of driving his creation, was swiftly apprehended by the Enforcement Division — called “Big ED” by the masses. His friends, who had once admired his courage from a safe distance, turned their backs, their fear of attracting attention outweighing their loyalty or curiosity at his creation.

The inventor’s contraption was dismantled, its pieces scattered to the winds, a clear message to any who dared dream of deviating from the prescribed path of Progress. The skies remained the domain of the elites, the roads and rails below choked with the silent procession of electric vehicles, and the power grid continued its capricious dance, dictating the pace of life on the ground.

Yet the story of the inventor lingered, a whisper of dissent that refused to be silenced. It traveled through the underground networks of discontent, a legend of resistance against a future that had been decided without consent. In the hushed conversations of those who remembered the world before, the inventor’s tale was a spark, a reminder that even in the most dystopian of futures, the human spirit, with its relentless drive for innovation and freedom, could not be entirely quenched.

But the true power of the inventor’s creation was not in its mechanics nor its defiance of electric limitations. It was in the idea it represented: Advancement is not a government-planned and coerced straight line leading to a predetermined destination, but a tangled web of possibilities, each path marked by the choices of free individuals in free markets daring enough to challenge the consensus — or who simply want something better for themselves and their families.

But in a world bound by the rules of the elites, the inventor’s engine was a threat that had to be annihilated — the physical object, the memory of it, and the idea of it.


Chuck DeVore is chief national initiatives officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a former California legislator, and a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel. He's the author of “The Crisis of the House Never United—A Novel of Early America.”


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: climatechange; engine; globalwarming; ice
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-29 last
To: SeekAndFind

We would have been unable to fight WWII and every war thereafter.


21 posted on 02/20/2024 10:57:32 AM PST by 353FMG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

22 posted on 02/20/2024 11:16:19 AM PST by Heartlander
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: The Louiswu

There is no particular sanctity in internal combustion engines. Before internal combustion engines, there were EXTERNAL combustion engines, specifically steam engines, that used the power of steam to generate rotational power. They needed no auxiliary electrical apparatus for either starting or continued operation, though they were exceptionally good at providing energy input to generate electricity.

Much of the early automotive engineering was directed at utilizing steam power as a medium for converting heat energy into kinetic energy. The Stanley Steamer easily outperformed most internal-combustion powered vehicles in the early years. It was largely Henry Ford’s capability of vastly outproducing steam vehicles with the Model T, that finally forced steam power into eclipse, though the technology of steam continued to evolve, through the eccentric genius of Abner Doble.

Abner Doble gambled on steam. Doble built his first steam car while still in high school. He left the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to pursue his dream of building the finest steam car in the world. By 1918 he had built 80 steam cars in Detroit. He drove up to the Stanley factory in Massachusetts, and showed his marvel to the Stanley brothers, thinking they could adapt his much more sophisticated engine design, but they firmly told young Mr. Doble they knew everything they had to know about steam, would he please run along. Abner went back and organized a manufacturing facility, but he could not help continuing to tinker with his design, so no two vehicles were ever quite the same, and he never got into serious production. The 1924 model Doble steam car, which could run for 1,500 miles on a 24-gallon tank, had a flash boiler that could produce a working head of steam in one minute. This was more than equal to the reliability of even luxury vehicles of the era, but the company failed anyway. These vehicles ran in near silence, the loudest sound coming from the ignition of the flame that heated the flash boiler.

The design was tried by General Motors in the 1960’s, but the internal combustion culture that ruled the automobile industry still reasserted itself, and the idea was abandoned. There was even a Doble design airplane engine built, and it flew successfully, as it was light enough to be competitive with contemporary internal combustion designs, and more than adequate in its power output.

https://www.damninteresting.com/the-last-great-steam-car/


23 posted on 02/20/2024 11:44:40 AM PST by alloysteel (Most people slog through life without ever knowing the wonders of true insanity.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind
The milkman making his daily deliveries.

-PJ

24 posted on 02/20/2024 11:51:14 AM PST by Political Junkie Too ( * LAAP = Left-wing Activist Agitprop Press (formerly known as the MSM))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

WE don’t have to imagine that. We have several thousand years of history without one.


25 posted on 02/20/2024 2:58:40 PM PST by ealgeone
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: alloysteel
Research the Sultana, the Tulip, Sam Clemen's brother... Before you wax too rapturous...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boiler_explosions

26 posted on 02/20/2024 4:24:47 PM PST by jonascord (First rule of the Dunning-Kruger Club is that you do not know you are in the Dunning-Kruger club.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

Not hard to imagine. Read about the Revolutionary War.


27 posted on 02/20/2024 4:51:26 PM PST by Redleg Duke (“Who is John Galt?”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative

Yeah, and don’t forget the horseshit all over the streets and roads!


28 posted on 02/20/2024 4:52:10 PM PST by Redleg Duke (“Who is John Galt?”)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: SeekAndFind

“virtually limitless reserves of petroleum he knew to be abundant in his nation and many others around the world.”

At least argue from a point of truth. It makes our side look foolish when you don’t and throw hyperbole. As a near 20 year oil industry veteran as a petroleum geologist ,exploration geologist, operations geologist,hydrogeologist and certified PG, long standing member of Tau Sigma,SEG,AAPG,DGS,and the USGS. There is at most 48 years of liquid light hydrocarbons left at under $300 in 2024 dollars.that number assumes 2021 levels of consumption. When not if Asia, India and Africa middle classes demand energy consumption levels of Western standards that number drops very quickly.

Do not confuse climate commies with very real issue of resource depletion on a vastly over populated planet. Humans have burnt to the sky three hundred million years of fossil sunshine accumulations in just under 200 years there is not two hundred years left at any price with 8 billion people let alone the 10 billion that is expected in the next 40 years. Humans need to move post haste to long term resource management and also to an equitable distribution of the resources or world wars will be fought. China can field a 100 million man Army same for India in conventional battles with boots on the ground the West can’t win it they will be eforced to use nukes. This is exactly why China is massively expanding its nuclear program they intend to fight and win a nuclear war by shear population numbers alone they could loose 750 million and still be a breeding population of 600+ million. Nuclear war kills 300 million in North America that’s the end of any North American nation.


29 posted on 02/20/2024 6:26:04 PM PST by GenXPolymath
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-29 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson