Does technological progress have natural limits?

[Justin Swanton]

You are completely missing my point. Incremental improvements to ground cars are not important. They make no difference. You are not looking to the next discontinuity; the next blow your mind revolutionary improvement. I personally don't believe Transporters (Transfer Booths) will ever be possible, but what if they were invented tomorrow?

I think I got your point. My point is that the earthshaking technological breakthroughs were built on a theoretical understanding of the laws governing matter and its behaviour. A blow-your-mind revolutionary improvement cannot come out of a scientist's right thumb. It comes out of an ingenious application of theoretical knowledge - and that ingenious application comes pretty soon after the theoretical knowledge is acquired. The problem is that theoretical knowledge has advanced steadily for decades without there being any way of turning it into practical technology - and it's not for lack of trying.

Your comments about supersonic flights being uneconomical, completely sidestep the real reason why they are no longer important - i.e. the improvements made in communications, by phone, radio, videophone. There is no longer the necessity to conduct business in person.

My comments about supersonic flights are that - unlike subsonic flights - it was impossible to make them cheap enough for average travellers to use them. And despite phones, radio, videophone, etc. commercial air travel has increased and will continue to do so.

 

[Dave]

Moreover, scientists are confined to their boxes of knowledge. Many (most?) are unable to think in other fields -- a necessary requirement for understanding the whole of how science, law, economics, etc. work together and are built on what comes before them.

Have you some research that backs this up? I assume you have spoken with more than one oceanographer before coming to this conclusion. An education in science makes one more open than anyone else. The whole idea of an experimental hypothesis, thoroughly tested, and peer reviewed, is designed to question the theory at every stage.

 

[Dave]

My comments about supersonic flights are that - unlike subsonic flights - it was impossible to make them cheap enough for average travellers to use them. And despite phones, radio, videophone, etc. commercial air travel has increased and will continue to do so.

How much of that is holiday traffic? Do you need to get to your holiday resort and back in one day? Or, do you want a flight that has balanced speed and cost? Premium travel has always been business related, but the numbers just are not there.

 

[Dave]

The problem is that theoretical knowledge has advanced steadily for decades without there being any way of turning it into practical technology - and it's not for lack of trying.

Pure Science can advance for decades without any practical value. You have no way of knowing when it could have practical (but what you really mean is commercial) value.

I very much doubt we will ever have fusion power myself, but just humour me and let's say that there was a technical breakthrough tomorrow, and it was now possible. Wouldn't everything you have written here about energy and transport be obsolete overnight? Who knows what will be discovered. There are no limits!

 

[Justin Swanton]

How much of that is holiday traffic? Do you need to get to your holiday resort and back in one day? Or, do you want a flight that has balanced speed and cost? Premium travel has always been business related, but the numbers just are not there.

What every air traveller wants, and what the airlines cannot supply, is a trip by air that is quicker, more comfortable, and cheaper than those supplied by the airlines for the past 60 years. It's painfully obvious a technological ceiling was reached decades ago.

 

[hej]

Have you some research that backs this up? I assume you have spoken with more than one oceanographer before coming to this conclusion. An education in science makes one more open than anyone else. The whole idea of an experimental hypothesis, thoroughly tested, and peer reviewed, is designed to question the theory at every stage.

I had only received that opinion from one oceanographer. Based on my experience with other scientists, I took his statement at face value. If you feel differently, I understand, but please be patient with me, if you would. I have supporting points.

I do not have research. I do have much experience working with and talking to scientists. I have formally studied economics. The ones I have encountered have not. I also have studied (mostly but not wholly on my own) political science. I was pleased to find one, but only one, scientist who had read John Rawls.

Maybe I hung with the wrong crowd? Have other met scientists who are polymaths? Were they typical? I'm genuinely curious. I'd like to be scientific here, if possible. Pun not intended.

My experience in with scientists is at odds with what you say about an education in science. I find that scientists can have a very circumscribed bailiwick that, if entered by someone not in their field, they tenaciously defend -- regardless as to its shortcomings.

A (former) prof I know published a paper, announced by his university, which contained in it an explanation of how a photon relates to an electron -- along with material more in line with his field.

Before its publication, about half of the paper's review board resigned in protest. They were not 'more open than anyone else.' The ones that remained were -- and mainly had a few editorial tweaks.

I have formally studied (though not practiced) the relevant science to comprehend the paper. The graphics illustrating the absorption of photons by electrons are called Jablonski diagrams. They clearly show the resulting emission, e.g. via fluorescence. So, present science has long accepted the photon being contained in the electron. The prof had good reason (and many, many references) to back up his conclusions.

Those references were not good enough for a pair of physicists from his same university. They demanded that the chair of his department (not physics nor chemistry) yank the announcement of the paper. Poof. It was gone.

The paper remains -- along with its hundreds(!) of references. I will not share it out of respect for the former prof's wishes. He is now a persona non grata in science.

This guy has about a dozen papers, many/most in Nature (and perhaps Science). A career should not end because of a controversial paper. Yet, it did.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Pure Science can advance for decades without any practical value. You have no way of knowing when it could have practical (but what you really mean is commercial) value.

I very much doubt we will ever have fusion power myself, but just humour me and let's say that there was a technical breakthrough tomorrow, and it was now possible. Wouldn't everything you have written here about energy and transport be obsolete overnight? Who knows what will be discovered. There are no limits!

I grant you that fusion power just might become feasible, but I think I can safely put my head on a block and affirm that there is no way we'll ever get antimatter to work as a power source. There certainly are limits. If there weren't, we would have contemporary versions of the one-man inventors of the 1800's (think Edison and Bell). Developing anything resembling new technology today is incredibly difficult and expensive. I'm not going to invent antigravity or a cheap skylon by myself. Even the huge collective efforts that now develop technology are banging their heads against walls. Can they get the skylon to work economically? Who knows?

 

[hej]

Pure Science can advance for decades without any practical value.

That is the only kind I've done. Kind of bums me out sometimes when my mind turns to valuation.

I do concede that a good metaphor for basic science is being in a dark room, feeling about, and not really knowing what you will find -- or even, sometimes, what it is that you are looking for!

 

[hej]

I think I can safely put my head on a block and affirm that there is no way we'll ever get antimatter to work as a power source.

You are coming at the issue from the perspective of past and present science. If you look at upheavals in science, what Kuhn called paradigm shifts, you will realize that our present understanding, like past understandings, has gaps.

We look back at the Ultraviolet Catastrophe (a black body radiating more energy that it absorbed when UV shone on it), as a quaint, pre-quantal view of the photon.

We have no way of looking forward with certainty, but I suspect that our science, too, has some concepts that future generations of scientists will consider charmingly backwards.

 

[Dave]

What every air traveller wants, and what the airlines cannot supply, is a trip by air that is quicker, more comfortable, and cheaper than those supplied by the airlines for the past 60 years. It's painfully obvious a technological ceiling was reached decades ago.

Well, I disagree. Otherwise, why are people still buying tickets for Ryanair? Despite knowing they could be cancelled without compensation, it is the low price of the flights that attracts. Ditto for Easyjet, who have seen a several hundred per cent increase in bookings this year, despite the lack of comfort, restrictions on luggage and a general low budget flying experience.

@hej I have to turn in now. History has many scientists who were persecuted or ostracised because they had views that were not mainstream, but were later proved correct. Somehow, I don't feel that your acquaintance will be recorded as one of them.

"paradigm shifts" - yes, that was the point I was trying to make here.

 

[hej]

@hej I have to turn in now. History has many scientists who were persecuted or ostracised because they had views that were not mainstream, but were later proved correct. Somehow, I don't feel that your acquaintance will be recorded as one of them.

"paradigm shifts" - yes, that was the point I was trying to make here.[/QUOTE]

Right. Crises in the field help.

Your comment about my acquaintance (actually my friend) I found hilarious.

It made me think, though. Don't you think possible (perhaps even likely) that the preponderance of scientists persecuted or ostracised because of unorthodox -- but correct -- views could have been forgotten? After all, we tend to remember those scientists who have a chain of these ideas -- not one in isolation. The pioneer need not receive any credit -- particularly if, with his being relatively unknown, his concepts were ridiculed instead of published.

The paper I referred to is hard to understand -- but no one has criticised the underlying premises!

The (political and ad hominem) attacks on the paper were so numerous (and poorly made) that the publisher had to make an explicit statement linked to the paper. In sum, it read, if you have a scientific basis for your criticism, then I will publish it.

I checked for a couple of years and found no scientific criticism -- but plenty of scoffing on forum posts about the paper. Very few expressed an interest in its comprehension. Mockery was easier -- and more fun.

 

[Dave]

There certainly are limits. If there weren't, we would have contemporary versions of the one-man inventors of the 1800's (think Edison and Bell). Developing anything resembling new technology today is incredibly difficult and expensive.

I understand now where you are coming from. That the equipment and technology required to do research is beyond the financial means of the amateur. I think that is true for the really big engineering projects, or in the material sciences. All I would say is that you too easily dismiss the role of the amateur, now more generally know as a citizen scientist. Fields such as Astronomy, Botany and Zoology have always been lead by the amateur and often still are. There are few government scientists, and with austerity even less, so the chances of finding a new exoplanet with intelligent life, or a fungus with a medicinal cure for cancer, are just as likely to come from someone's spare bedroom as they ever were. It is also citizen scientists who are paving the way on pollution monitoring of the air, and of our rivers, or genetic mapping of human chromosomes, or medical research such as the mapping of 3D retinal neurons, as well as the microbiology of public spaces. Actually, the list of such projects is huge and easily Googled. What is more, citizen science also allows the non-scientist to meaningfully contribute. It isn't a lack of money or equipment that is the barrier in such projects, it is the depth; the detail and the time they require to produce results.

The other thing I would say is that the next big breakthrough is very unlikely to be because someone working on the cutting edge of science has success in an experiment. It would be from the idea behind that experiment taking place. It is the idea itself that is important, so yes, that idea can come out of a scientists right thumb. Einstein was working as a patent clerk while he wrote his theory of relativity.

The problem with the examples you have used - motor cars, Edison and Bell - is that they have, in my view, a much too short a timescale to prove the point you are making. I agree that motor cars have reached a limit in their development, but put them in the context of the development of vehicles from horse-drawn carriages to the Jetson's aircar. You also have no way of knowing what is coming next to replace them. I think Transporters (Transfer Booths) are fantasy, but if they were invented tomorrow, cars, trains, aeroplanes and boats would become largely redundant overnight. I think a better example of technological advance would be Agriculture, since it has been examined for a lot longer by a lot more people, including Thomas Malthus. The population of the world has never outstripped the supply of food, because there has been a number of technological solutions over time that have allowed the means of subsistence to increase. These were rarely continuous improvements, but were instead, very long periods of stagnation, followed by surprising innovation that changed everything. However, in the very long term, the problem is not a limit on technological innovation, but a limit to our natural resources.

 

[Justin Swanton]

I understand now where you are coming from. That the equipment and technology required to do research is beyond the financial means of the amateur. I think that is true for the really big engineering projects, or in the material sciences. All I would say is that you too easily dismiss the role of the amateur, now more generally know as a citizen scientist.

I don't dismiss the amateur. I just mentioned the fact that single individuals today are incapable of inventing technological breakthroughs on the scale of those achieved in the 19th century. No amateurs today are even trying to invent antigravity, or homemade fusion reactors, or antimatter drives, or anything that would significantly alter the current state of macrotechnology.

Fields such as Astronomy, Botany and Zoology have always been lead by the amateur and often still are. There are few government scientists, and with austerity even less, so the chances of finding a new exoplanet with intelligent life, or a fungus with a medicinal cure for cancer, are just as likely to come from someone's spare bedroom as they ever were.

To repeat a distinction made earlier, theoretical research is still progressing steadily, but practical application is not. The current state of research technology (which BTW can't be manufactured by individuals but only by collectivities) allows individuals to learn more about the world around them. But generally speaking there's just no way of turning that theoretical knowledge to practical use, with one exception - bioengineering. Bioengineering is in its infancy so we don't yet know how far humans can successfully tinker with genetic DNA coding. We didn't invent the 4-base programming language of DNA and we are far from perfectly understanding it, so fiddling with it is rather like doing brain surgery with a hacksaw.

It is also citizen scientists who are paving the way on pollution monitoring of the air, and of our rivers, or genetic mapping of human chromosomes, or medical research such as the mapping of 3D retinal neurons, as well as the microbiology of public spaces. Actually, the list of such projects is huge and easily Googled. What is more, citizen science also allows the non-scientist to meaningfully contribute. It isn't a lack of money or equipment that is the barrier in such projects, it is the depth; the detail and the time they require to produce results.

It depends on what is being developed. A major breakthrough that will substantially alter our physical existence, or just another t crossed or i dotted?

The other thing I would say is that the next big breakthrough is very unlikely to be because someone working on the cutting edge of science has success in an experiment. It would be from the idea behind that experiment taking place. It is the idea itself that is important, so yes, that idea can come out of a scientists right thumb. Einstein was working as a patent clerk while he wrote his theory of relativity.

Relativity is a mathematical theory resting on a mathematical foundation that had been created before Einstein built on it. And Einstein wrote the theory a hundred years ago. So it's not new, it doesn't have a practical application, and he didn't create it out of thin air.

From the beginning of technological inventiveness there has been a direct correlation between a theoretical understanding of the forces of nature and a practical application of that understanding, the practical application following hard on the theoretical understanding. Today it is different - theoretical understanding continues to make strides but it now deals with realities that are too fundamental to be easily manipulated. It has become knowledge for knowledge's sake and this I suspect is the real reason for the falling off of research projects.

The problem with the examples you have used - motor cars, Edison and Bell - is that they have, in my view, a much too short a timescale to prove the point you are making. I agree that motor cars have reached a limit in their development, but put them in the context of the development of vehicles from horse-drawn carriages to the Jetson's aircar. You also have no way of knowing what is coming next to replace them. I think Transporters (Transfer Booths) are fantasy, but if they were invented tomorrow, cars, trains, aeroplanes and boats would become largely redundant overnight.

Transporters are fantasy because we know enough about physics to realise there are no natural laws that can be manipulated to make them work. And that doesn't change no matter how often one says "What if?"

What came next after the motor car was the aeroplane, and after the aeroplane came the space ship, and each technological step that increased the speed of transport proved more difficult and expensive to implement, eventually levelling out at subsonic flight in cramped airline cabins for the majority of travellers. This video is a good summary of the shortcomings of supersonic commercial flight.

I think a better example of technological advance would be Agriculture, since it has been examined for a lot longer by a lot more people, including Thomas Malthus. The population of the world has never outstripped the supply of food, because there has been a number of technological solutions over time that have allowed the means of subsistence to increase. These were rarely continuous improvements, but were instead, very long periods of stagnation, followed by surprising innovation that changed everything. However, in the very long term, the problem is not a limit on technological innovation, but a limit to our natural resources.

Food production has increased thanks to carefully regulated factory farming and the introduction of more productive strains of crops plants through selective breeding and genetic enhancement. But those methods, like everything, have limits. We reach a point where we can produce only so much food per hectare.

 

[Serendipity]

Are transporters really fantasy? Could they not be developed in the distant future using some laws of physics we don't yet know about? How do we know we have discovered all the laws of physics we can manipulate or use?

I really must get round to writing a chapbook for the philosophy of science for the ordinary person in the street... but the laws of physics are based on the principle that every time you set up an experiment it will give the same result. The laws of physics are but a summary of the patterns we humans observe in nature. And as far as the laws of physics are concerned, humans have picked the low hanging fruit.

True technology progresses when new laws are 'discovered'. But there is a second mechanism for technology progress. The combinatorial use of the laws of physics. Just think of an aircraft with its aerodynamics to help give it lift, its controls to be able to steer it through the air, its engine to propel it forward at speed and its payload. (Did you people know that they once tried to design an aircraft using a coal-fired steam engine? - Turned out the fuel payload was too heavy for the aircraft to be useful.) I suspect you would agree that combining the laws of physics in a fundamentally different way that results in a significant new capability would be considered a breakthrough technology. Because there's so many ways of combining the laws of physics, I think I can safely say that there are many combinations that have not been 'worked on'. So the combinatorial mechanism is the way I would expect significant technology progress to be made in the near future.

 

[Dave]

Food production has increased thanks to carefully regulated factory farming and the introduction of more productive strains of crops plants through selective breeding and genetic enhancement. But those methods, like everything, have limits. We reach a point where we can produce only so much food per hectare.

It was much more than that, and I don't agree that we have reached any limit (from a technological point of view, a resource economic limit possibly.) However, I suspect we will never agree on this subject and will have to agree to disagree.

I do believe that there are engineering solutions to many of today's problems, even climate change, it is merely the economics that limit them, not the technology. Which your earlier examples of space travel and supersonic flight are prime examples.

Because there's so many ways of combining the laws of physics, I think I can safely say that there are many combinations that have not been 'worked on'. So the combinatorial mechanism is the way I would expect significant technology progress to be made in the near future.

Including the cross-fertilisation of ideas between different scientific fields.

Moreover, scientists are confined to their boxes of knowledge. Many (most?) are unable to think in other fields.

I also don't believe this is true. It happens frequently. There are examples but I'd have to go and research them.

My mention of Einstein was merely to show that he wasn't actually employed in that field at the time. Maybe better examples are science fiction writers - satellite communications from Arthur C Clark, or a Freeman Dyson Sphere. I admit, it is one thing to "think" of a fusion reactor, and quite another entirely to make one that works, but in order to attempt to build one, you not only need to have all the theoretical and technological pieces in place, but you also need to have the imagination. The imagination has no limits.

 

[Venusian Broon]

I know you are playing devils advocate a bit Justin , but my understanding of what you deem 'progress' I find a little dismal. I mean, is progress merely the ability to get from point A to point B 400% quicker? Or to have a car that is 'radically' different from the one that went before it?

There's other areas of progress. Take cars - we're now talking about phasing out petrol and diesel cars from about 2040 here in the UK - to cut air pollution*, and to move to electric cars. Now will electric cars then be 'better' than the outgoing petrol ones? Probably not, but if it significantly cuts air pollution I'll take that as great progress. I do think we are a little bit more concerned about environment than in previous centuries and this is a big step forward (Could be a lot better of course)

Also, I'm sure we could all have cars that race around at F1 speeds, but they share the road with all sorts of other users - so in fact they are probably at the correct optimum performance for the rest of society.

This opens up the question of environmental, social and society progress which you don't touch upon.

But personally my idea of progress, if you are going to allow me to hook it only into science, is not based on all the stuff we can make from our knowledge, but is how our understanding of the universe and the strange things in it, like pure mathematics, is increasing. That is what the Scientific revolution bequeath us, not a conveyer belt of magical toys getting bigger, brighter and always much better. To my limited view on what's happening in the world today we are making continuing to grow our understanding. We still progress.

What we make of all this increasing knowledge in practical manners is somewhat random (although personally I do think we are still at the start of the Quantum and biological revolutions - there is a lot that can be done that will be quite game changing in genetics, medicine, computing etc...)

As for being dismissive about quarks not having a practical application - give it time. I mean the Greeks discovered static electricity around 600 BCE and it only took about 2400 years to get a practical application from that discovery

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* Also I suspect that by that time we may have reached over peak oil, hence it would be a good thing to move away from such a fuel, but it's always dangerous thing to speculate when peak oil will occur!

 

[hej]

Are transporters really fantasy? Could they not be developed in the distant future using some laws of physics we don't yet know about? How do we know we have discovered all the laws of physics we can manipulate or use?

I do not see how transporters could possibly become real, but then, I don't know the future.

I do know that physics only describes the photon, the electron, and larger particles and items.

Therefore, physics only concerns itself with about four percent(!) of the cosmos.

The 4 Percent Universe - Wikipedia

Right now, dark matter and dark energy we simply gesture at or ignore.

So, we have technology based on a tiny slice of reality!

How do you like dem apples?

I'd say we have plenty of room for progress, and I even have some ideas about how to begin. But. The science I know is unpublished and unpublishable. It is written by a scientist who is not a physicist, it uses neologisms (which, apparently, are not acceptable if one uses them to describe a new field of study), and treads on physicists' sacred ground (can't have that, because physics works -- except for 96% of the time).

Suffice to say, dark matter is embedded in the photon. While this embedding occurs in every other system of matter (electrons absorb photons, water contains electrons, carbohydrate includes water, etc.) for some strange reason, saying that the photon has something within it is verboten!

Better to be ignorant, I guess.

Technology can not embrace the remaining 96% of the universe until some silver-tongued scientists persuades his/her colleagues about the nature of dark matter and dark energy.

 

[hej]

I also don't believe this is true. It happens frequently.

I am not saying expansive education never happens, but I have not found it in the numerous scientists I have known and know -- save one.

I hope we can agree to disagree.

I will add that I have read and studied (both formally and not) many fields aside from science.

I know one scientist who is familiar with the following fields: physics, chemistry, biochemistry, biology, emergence of the senses, linguistics, invention of writing, discovery of abstract numerals, economics (and what it requires, i.e. numbers in a system), the origin of law (and why writing is essential and 'oral law' is an oxymoron), religion's dependence on and recapitulation of law, and oh, a couple others.

The fields above one needs to understand to trace the origin of life to the foundation of ancient civilizations -- and beyond. Knowledge of just the hard science or just the social studies gives an incomplete picture.

While this particular partial understanding need not hinder technology, it certainly precludes comprehending how systems work as a whole. So, technology comes from science that sees the trees, but not the forest.

 

[Justin Swanton]

I know you are playing devils advocate a bit Justin , but my understanding of what you deem 'progress' I find a little dismal. I mean, is progress merely the ability to get from point A to point B 400% quicker? Or to have a car that is 'radically' different from the one that went before it?

This thread just looks at technological progress. Deciding what constitutes true progress for humanity is another separate and vast topic in itself.

There's other areas of progress. Take cars - we're now talking about phasing out petrol and diesel cars from about 2040 here in the UK - to cut air pollution*, and to move to electric cars. Now will electric cars then be 'better' than the outgoing petrol ones? Probably not, but if it significantly cuts air pollution I'll take that as great progress. I do think we are a little bit more concerned about environment than in previous centuries and this is a big step forward (Could be a lot better of course)

Fine. Point is that electric cars are not significantly faster or cheaper than petrol or diesel ones. The ceiling remains where it is.

Also, I'm sure we could all have cars that race around at F1 speeds, but they share the road with all sorts of other users - so in fact they are probably at the correct optimum performance for the rest of society.

Which repeats the point. We can't make cars faster than they are and keep them safe, at least not without enormous expense (special roads) at which point it's no longer technological progress since it must by definition remain affordable across-the-board.

This opens up the question of environmental, social and society progress which you don't touch upon.

The environment wasn't the direct subject of the thread, but we can see environment as another limiting factor to technological progress. What nobody looks at when talking electric cars is how is that electricity going to be generated once you dump fossil fuels and uranium? You have only three alternatives: hydroelectric power, wind vanes and solar panels. HEP depends on how many large perennial rivers you have, and in a drought production can drop off drastically. Solar power on an industrial scale needs lots of deserts with minimal cloud cover. Somebody suggested that the Sahara is a perfect place - until you think about which part of the world the Sahara is in. Wind vanes are also erratic. All three together can probably be made to work, but my feeling is that they are more high-maintenance sources of power than fossil fuels, which means a more expensive and hence scaled-back industrial complex.

But personally my idea of progress, if you are going to allow me to hook it only into science, is not based on all the stuff we can make from our knowledge, but is how our understanding of the universe and the strange things in it, like pure mathematics, is increasing. That is what the Scientific revolution bequeath us, not a conveyer belt of magical toys getting bigger, brighter and always much better. To my limited view on what's happening in the world today we are making continuing to grow our understanding. We still progress.

Fair enough.

What we make of all this increasing knowledge in practical manners is somewhat random (although personally I do think we are still at the start of the Quantum and biological revolutions - there is a lot that can be done that will be quite game changing in genetics, medicine, computing etc...)

I'm not sure what a Quantum revolution is supposed to be. Biological revolution - genetics is a dangerous game since we are not creating technology from the ground up which we can understand and refine, but tinkering with already existing and fantastically complex biological machines that we hardly understand at all. There's an awful lot to blow up.

As for being dismissive about quarks not having a practical application - give it time. I mean the Greeks discovered static electricity around 600 BCE and it only took about 2400 years to get a practical application from that discovery

The Greco-roman civilisation got a far as a primitive steam engine and a very sophisticated astronomical clock, but after the collapse of Rome it took another 1200 years before the West reached the same level of sophistication. So actually, we've been at it for the last 350 years or so, starting very slowly and picking up speed - until now.

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* Also I suspect that by that time we may have reached over peak oil, hence it would be a good thing to move away from such a fuel, but it's always dangerous thing to speculate when peak oil will occur!

It seems we are further away from that than originally assumed. Not in our lifetime anyway.

 

[Vertigo]

The environment wasn't the direct subject of the thread, but we can see environment as another limiting factor to technological progress. What nobody looks at when talking electric cars is how is that electricity going to be generated once you dump fossil fuels and uranium? You have only three alternatives: hydroelectric power, wind vanes and solar panels. HEP depends on how many large perennial rivers you have, and in a drought production can drop off drastically. Solar power on an industrial scale needs lots of deserts with minimal cloud cover. Somebody suggested that the Sahara is a perfect place - until you think about which part of the world the Sahara is in. Wind vanes are also erratic. All three together can probably be made to work, but my feeling is that they are more high-maintenance sources of power than fossil fuels, which means a more expensive and hence scaled-back industrial complex.

That's a rather limited list of energy sources: you have omitted tidal and wave power, both of which have huge potential. As well as other 'weird' things like salt water osmosis First osmosis power plant goes on stream in Norway. I watched an interesting documentary a few years ago on that last one. And of course, though we're not there yet, if we do achieve fusion power then that's likely to be a game changer.

I agree that these alternative are not yet in a place to replace fossil but they are moving closer.