A Golden Island To The West — California ISOT from 2018 to 1850

[Midnighter13]

Yeah, trying to get European Christians to rule the middle east via proxy Muslim warlords won't work for very long if at all. Worse, both the Arabs and the Europeans would know that because that has been made very clear by the next two centuries of history. The Ottomans are going to have a vested interest in crushing Whabbi Islam, and they will have a vested interest in importing skilled workers (depending on how Californian Jews decide to jump, that could be the jumping off point to negotiate the purchase/repurchase of Israel from them as a province, which would rapidly prove profitable to the empire). However, they are not going to just roll over and let Europeans annex various territories they rule.

The Ottomans are not quite collapsing yet (though they are getting close) and writing them off as a non entity is foolish. They are still a large and powerful empire, albeit one in decline with internal issues. Even so, the Ottomans are a better proxy for European or Californian business interests than a middle east ravaged by tens of thousands of feuding warlords, tribes, religious fanatics, and worse. That is exactly what would occur if the empire collapsed too fast. Right now, there are no structures in place to fill the void left by the loss of imperial administrators, and without that massive tribal and ethnic wars would explode across the region. Keeping the Ottomans in control is actually a good thing for the West, because generally speaking the Turkish empire is a more stable long term partner than any uplifted Arab tribe turned national government, and they have far more legitimacy among the Arab population.

 

[kaazmiz]

An easier way to deal with the possibility of Wahhabism that doesn't satisfy this obsession of yours with Europe dominating the region

Click to shrink...

I don't actually really care about the religion*, its just one of the many reasons "WHY" something can happen. Oil being somewhere there too.
Personally I think that anyone aiming for the region would do so for the simple reason of it being the shortest trading route with with Asia. It cuts nearly 6 months of sailing around, and spares a lot of resources in both men and conserving ships.

It makes for an extremely valid reason to any power, and that anyone having some future insight, and spare cash and troops could pull a successful invasion and occupation. The European alliance is the most valid one. But it does not in any way stop, say, the French, or Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese to suddenly swoop in and have a good laugh at everyone else expense.
Oil is already drilled in England and Russia, and just a year from now the need for naphtha and lubricants will raise beyond what shipping can carry. Its literally a 'golden opportunity'.

And in all honesty I am not obsessing over Europe dominating the region. It's basically what does happen anyway, and would have happened sooner if those nations knew what they will know now.

*Its just that in the age of political correctness and clenched ass sensibilities, everyone will instantly grab onto one thing and make it the main focus ,and poke at it as the bad failing point.
1850 Sunni is a minority religion, and has a great chance of losing the conflicts that lasted nearly 70 years, that saw them emerging as a power even without the Ottomans disappearing. In the hands of a skilled politician they can be however used as a good scare tactic in parliaments/gatherings etc.
Just as communism, drugs, popular elections, united China, or giant spaghetti monster.

 

[LHB]

I don't actually really care about the religion*, its just one of the many reasons "WHY" something can happen. Oil being somewhere there too.
Personally I think that anyone aiming for the region would do so for the simple reason of it being the shortest trading route with with Asia. It cuts nearly 6 months of sailing around, and spares a lot of resources in both men and conserving ships.

It makes for an extremely valid reason to any power, and that anyone having some future insight, and spare cash and troops could pull a successful invasion and occupation. The European alliance is the most valid one. But it does not in any way stop, say, the French, or Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese to suddenly swoop in and have a good laugh at everyone else expense.
Oil is already drilled in England and Russia, and just a year from now the need for naphtha and lubricants will raise beyond what shipping can carry. Its literally a 'golden opportunity'.

And in all honesty I am not obsessing over Europe dominating the region. It's basically what does happen anyway, and would have happened sooner if those nations knew what they will know now.

*Its just that in the age of political correctness and clenched ass sensibilities, everyone will instantly grab onto one thing and make it the main focus ,and poke at it as the bad failing point.
1850 Sunni is a minority religion, and has a great chance of losing the conflicts that lasted nearly 70 years, that saw them emerging as a power even without the Ottomans disappearing. In the hands of a skilled politician they can be however used as a good scare tactic in parliaments/gatherings etc.
Just as communism, drugs, popular elections, united China, or giant spaghetti monster.

Click to shrink...

You've got a lot of basic facts wrong here. The first oil strike on the planet was Titusville, Pennsylvania in the year 1859. Oil was most certainly not being drilled in England and Russia in 1851, the oil in Russia is down in Baku and the only oil that's accessible in or near the British Isles is under the North Sea. Getting something that basic wrong casts a lot of doubt on how accurate the rest of your pontificating about a golden opportunity surrounding naptha and lubricants actually is and begs for some credible sources to be presented by you. Said lack of credibility is compounded by your ludicrous claim the Sunni were somehow a minority in the Ottoman Empire in the 1850s particularly in the Middle East. That's simply false on its face. There's also no reason for a grand European alliance, like you posit, to happen especially when ITTL there's already strong indications that France is going to be at odds with Britain and Russia over Germany.

That's before going into the fact that simply knowing there's oil in Iran and the eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia doesn't do anyone who isn't California a lick of good for actually exploiting it. The Iranian oil wells were tapped in the late 1890s and those were located thanks to surface vents making them easily detectable. The Saudi wells weren't even found until 1933 and depended on more sophisticated technologies, techniques and tools available to a highly experienced oil industry that simply doesn't exist outside of California. Suggesting the European powers will drop everything and jump all over the Middle East to get access to a resource that, as far as they're concerned, isn't actually necessary for anything, isn't readily available or exploitable, whose exploitation depends on infrastructure that doesn't exist and is at this point more of an abstract possibility rather than a concrete opportunity. That's before going into the same sources that say oil is to be found there also say the precise strategy you advocate will, ultimately, backfire on them spectacularly.

I'm also going to re-iterate my earlier call-out of you reeking of being a Deus Vult fanboy possibly even AltRight. Between your fantasies of a nonsensical European alliance motivated by the fear of what Muslim extremists might do (cause butterflies are already lose due to the ISOT) over a hundred years in the future, your waxing eloquent about restoring Byzantium and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, your "hard man" argument coupled with a rant about PC culture and your incredibly inaccurate factual claims I have to question if your speculation is purely idle pondering. The coincidences and pattern of your thinking is lining up in a pretty clear shape I've seen plenty of times before which makes for a pretty nasty picture.

 

[Alane1]

Wen it comes to California outside of the California wells, they already know about the untapped oil fields in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and elsewhere in the US along with all the other untapped natural resources across the Americas from the west coast to the east that haven't been discovered yet.

 

[LHB]

Wen it comes to California outside of the California wells, they already know about the untapped oil fields in Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and elsewhere in the US along with all the other untapped natural resources across the Americas from the west coast to the east that haven't been discovered yet.

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Which they won't be in any hurry to be tapping anyway seeing as the California wells are back at full capacity. Between that and the broader push to get away from fossil fuels that's implied, particularly since that'll be the best way to avert the speeding bullet that is future climate change, it's more likely that California will be going for helping everyone else leapfrog past oil instead of pumping it out of the ground everywhere possible.

 

[kaazmiz]

You've got a lot of basic facts wrong here. The first oil strike on the planet was Titusville, Pennsylvania in the year 1859. Oil was most certainly not being drilled in England and Russia in 1851, the oil in Russia is down in Baku and the only oil that's accessible in or near the British Isles is under the North Sea.

Click to shrink...

I can only send you to read about oil drilling in Riddings, Derbyshire, England owned by one James Young (figured out how to distill oil into paraffin), who earned so much on oil since 1847 (till 1850 collected in a coal mine, then drilled) that he funded the African expedition of David Livingstone, and when that explorer got lost he funded another expedition, spearheaded by Henry Morton Stanley.
Later on his company bought mines in Addiewell, West Lothian, Scotland that proved to have oil deposits, resulting in 22 oil rigs. Oil in West Lothian (entire county!) was extracted till 1921.
There were also oil drills in Poland (under Austria) and Romania.

Said lack of credibility is compounded by your ludicrous claim the Sunni were somehow a minority in the Ottoman Empire in the 1850s particularly in the Middle East. That's simply false on its face.

Click to shrink...

There is an extensive widely know history of Islam as a religion.
And I want to say THAT I AM SORRY for ACCIDENTALLY writing Sunni and not Wahhabi, as technically one originated from the other and I just don't care that much.
In the time period we are discussing #snort# the region where Wahhabism was born, Najd, is enveloped in what amounts to clan warfare, since an Ottoman attack that subjugated them in 1818. Resulting in that particular offshoot of the larger religion being pushed back into the center of the peninsula, and then having to survive amongst disunited clans. It became a minority religion even on the Peninsula, and it wasn't till nearly 1912 when the Saud dynasty attacked the eastern shore of the peninsula that it began to gain popularity.

I am not going to respond to the rest of that post.

 

[xa na xa]

A fossil fuel phase is necessary to kick-start the industrial revolution.

The easy-to-get stuff is just so cheap and available, it would be economically non-sensical not to use it.

But a long-term goal could be to have large parts of the rest of the world to be sufficiently technologically uplifted to start large-scale transition to renewables by around 1900.

 

[Midnighter13]

Which they won't be in any hurry to be tapping anyway seeing as the California wells are back at full capacity. Between that and the broader push to get away from fossil fuels that's implied, particularly since that'll be the best way to avert the speeding bullet that is future climate change, it's more likely that California will be going for helping everyone else leapfrog past oil instead of pumping it out of the ground everywhere possible.

Click to shrink...

A fossil fuel phase is necessary to kick-start the industrial revolution.

The easy-to-get stuff is just so cheap and available, it would be economically non-sensical not to use it.

But a long-term goal could be to have large parts of the rest of the world to be sufficiently technologically uplifted to start large-scale transition to renewables by around 1900.

Click to shrink...

Here's the thing, California does not actually have a way of replacing oil. Even modern California does not have the technology or any sort of economic trick that allows them to say 'hey, that incredibly valuable resource that the entire modern world is based on, we don't need that anymore". Yes, the 1850's world is not yet based on oil, but they key word their is yet. Fact is, even with all the renewable tech California has, oil is still the resource that allows all the modern miracles California wants to export.

Look at any uptime miracle tech that downtimers might be interested in, and when they ask 'well how do you make that?' 90% of the time it will require oil to produce, transport, maintain, or do one of those things to something in the supply chain. Computers, cars, aircraft, roads, modern construction, the various miracle drugs California has, all of those either require oil, or are dependent on oil based infrastructure. The idea that California (now the most oil dependent country in the world in 1850) is somehow going to convince the world not to take advantage of oil, especially after being a living example of what you can achieve with it... is absurd.

Now, will California export non-oil based technologies to try and reduce the oil dependency of countries in the future? Yes, of course. Solar farms providing the power to create hydrogen fuel cells will be quite helpful towards making the vehicles of the 1900s based on electricity and/or hydrogen rather than oil, that will help. Bio-oil production for medical research and production of modern medicines without oil is possible. Creating renewable power sources to avoid coal and oil power plants, sure. But oil is going to be used to make plastics as soon as the downtimers figure out how, whether CA wants them to or not. Same with jet fuels, industrial lubricants, asphalt, and a number of other materials that can only be made one way.

This idea that California can come out and declare 'oil is bad, don't use it!' while showing all the miracles oil can make well... there is a reason the modern third world is more interested in industrializing rather than cutting emissions now, and the 1850s nations are in the same boat. They will say 'well if you can use it, so can we' and go full steam ahead improving their economies and standard of living, and damn the eventual environmental consequences.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

A few things.
1. The oil is a bit of a chimera. While yes, everyone is going to use it, the fact is that it's going to help the environment in the short term, replacing coal and such.
2. We're talking decades before the environment starts getting bad off, and in those decades, you'll see a lot of leapfrogging. by the 1870s, it's likely that LEDs will be replacing incandescents and a lot of intermediary steps that the old world had to take, because they didn't know the rest of the steps, will be avoided. Technological change, and yes, that includes environmental mitigation tech, will be moving very fast compared to the OTL.


On the military, it's important to remember a few things.

1. California can only project a tiny amount of its total fire power, it is true.

But it only needs to project a very little bit. You don't need to worry about RAM, or Stealh, or AAM's, when nobody else has missiles or aircraft. You don't need to worry about ATGMs or HE when nobody else has modern cannon. A company of soldiers mounted in M113s with M2s could obliterate any current down time army, even presuming they don't cheat and use NVG to attack at night.

At sea? Forget the military, you could simply take a mid-sized cargo ship, install a landing deck for some Marine Cobras and a prefab hanger, a few 35mm cannon, and some ATGM's...and now you can sink the British Navy, whevever you choose to do so, and they can't even run away.

BUT... and this is a very big BUT...

California is first of all, a first world state from the 21st century, a time that despite what CNN and youtube tells us, is probably one of the most peaceful periods in history. It comes from an era, where quite unlike the 1850s, most nations overtly renounce the idea that you can change borders by violence.

Secondly, America knows just how well colonial empires played out--which is to say, ultimately they didn't. If anything, a lot of the radicalism that plagued the 21st century had its genesis in the great colonial empires and the anti-colonial movements tha trose against them. I strongly doubt any serious number of Californian's are going to embrace the Imperial method of educating the heathen.

 

[TiaC]

I find it likely that California's easiest route to global power is placing missile destroyers within range of palaces and telling kings "listen to us or we kill you." It's a relatively bloodless way to exert power that works well on the states of this time.

 

[Midnighter13]

I find it likely that California's easiest route to global power is placing missile destroyers within range of palaces and telling kings "listen to us or we kill you." It's a relatively bloodless way to exert power that works well on the states of this time.

Click to shrink...

Yeah... no. Because either they are bluffing (in which case as soon as someone calls them on it their power folds world wide) or they are serious, which means they will have to follow through and start assassinating national leaders. Totally aside from the fact that this is blatantly illegal, its also a terrible idea. No nation is going to do business with a country known for assassinating national leaders they don't like. If you want an example of how a country reacts to a foreign power getting rid of their popular and legitimate government to install a new puppet government to act in the interests of the foreign power... I refer you to the Iranian revolution. That's what would happen in every country California tries to pull that strategy on. Only this wouldn't be a single isolated regional power half way around the world, under your policy proposal every state in the world would react in a similar manner.

Even in the darkest most brutal and most racist days of WWII, the US went out of their way to avoid bombing the Imperial Palace in Japan, and it was not because they thought the emperor was on their side. You open the Pandora's box of Presidential assassination, and the various Presidents of California will never leave office except via body-bag. No one trusts a state that does that sort of thing. In fact, its politically more acceptable to invade and occupy a country (especially in this time) than assassinate heads of government. Yes it is slower, less efficient, and more expensive, but that's the point. It gives states a chance to defend themselves and act as states, rather than forcing national leaders to act based on their personal interest of self preservation. Assassination of national leaders has been a political taboo for centuries, and for good reason. Just remember that WWI started because some idiot broke that rule.

 

[LHB]

I can only send you to read about oil drilling in Riddings, Derbyshire, England owned by one James Young (figured out how to distill oil into paraffin), who earned so much on oil since 1847 (till 1850 collected in a coal mine, then drilled) that he funded the African expedition of David Livingstone, and when that explorer got lost he funded another expedition, spearheaded by Henry Morton Stanley.
Later on his company bought mines in Addiewell, West Lothian, Scotland that proved to have oil deposits, resulting in 22 oil rigs. Oil in West Lothian (entire county!) was extracted till 1921.
There were also oil drills in Poland (under Austria) and Romania.


There is an extensive widely know history of Islam as a religion.
And I want to say THAT I AM SORRY for ACCIDENTALLY writing Sunni and not Wahhabi, as technically one originated from the other and I just don't care that much.
In the time period we are discussing #snort# the region where Wahhabism was born, Najd, is enveloped in what amounts to clan warfare, since an Ottoman attack that subjugated them in 1818. Resulting in that particular offshoot of the larger religion being pushed back into the center of the peninsula, and then having to survive amongst disunited clans. It became a minority religion even on the Peninsula, and it wasn't till nearly 1912 when the Saud dynasty attacked the eastern shore of the peninsula that it began to gain popularity.

I am not going to respond to the rest of that post.

Click to shrink...

You're going to need to cite some actual sources that don't sound like they came out of your ass. Pretty much every single credible history written on oil drilling says the first recorded strike was in Pennsylvania in 1859. You're also, again, ignoring the issues of infrastructure and lack of demand for said product anytime soon as drilling in Arabia and Iran isn't exactly a walk in the park.

As for the rest of it the Islamophobia of your posts and refusal to engage is so classically AltRight you may as well either piss off or own that you screwed up, apologize and drop this whole train of thought. This whole, "I'm not even bothering to engage/how rude" nonsense is so straight out of the playbook that you're channeling Richard Spencer. It's dishonest and a clear dodge. Either clarify you are not by apologizing and dropping the issue or slither on back to whatever sewer you crawled out of.

 

[LHB]

Here's the thing, California does not actually have a way of replacing oil. Even modern California does not have the technology or any sort of economic trick that allows them to say 'hey, that incredibly valuable resource that the entire modern world is based on, we don't need that anymore". Yes, the 1850's world is not yet based on oil, but they key word their is yet. Fact is, even with all the renewable tech California has, oil is still the resource that allows all the modern miracles California wants to export.

Look at any uptime miracle tech that downtimers might be interested in, and when they ask 'well how do you make that?' 90% of the time it will require oil to produce, transport, maintain, or do one of those things to something in the supply chain. Computers, cars, aircraft, roads, modern construction, the various miracle drugs California has, all of those either require oil, or are dependent on oil based infrastructure. The idea that California (now the most oil dependent country in the world in 1850) is somehow going to convince the world not to take advantage of oil, especially after being a living example of what you can achieve with it... is absurd.

Now, will California export non-oil based technologies to try and reduce the oil dependency of countries in the future? Yes, of course. Solar farms providing the power to create hydrogen fuel cells will be quite helpful towards making the vehicles of the 1900s based on electricity and/or hydrogen rather than oil, that will help. Bio-oil production for medical research and production of modern medicines without oil is possible. Creating renewable power sources to avoid coal and oil power plants, sure. But oil is going to be used to make plastics as soon as the downtimers figure out how, whether CA wants them to or not. Same with jet fuels, industrial lubricants, asphalt, and a number of other materials that can only be made one way.

This idea that California can come out and declare 'oil is bad, don't use it!' while showing all the miracles oil can make well... there is a reason the modern third world is more interested in industrializing rather than cutting emissions now, and the 1850s nations are in the same boat. They will say 'well if you can use it, so can we' and go full steam ahead improving their economies and standard of living, and damn the eventual environmental consequences.

Click to shrink...

All of this is true however California is in a position to encourage short-cuts along the lines of, "oil is useful for all of these things but we're implementing something that's even better that anyone can build anywhere that won't depend on resources that are only available in hard to get at/politically volatile places." As useful as oil is downtimers would still be operating from a coal/muscle based power system that is only just developing the first inkling of a combustion/gas driven engine. Even with importing stuff from California they'd still need time to reverse engineer it, build the necessary machine tools and other technology to actually construct it then implement it. The problem facing both uplift and downtimers isn't just the tech itself, it's the tech you need to build the tech.

For one example of the problem at hand Latin America faced that stumbling block during the Import Substitution Industrialization period of the 1950s and 1960s where, in spite of all efforts to build up their economy, they were stuck in a bind of not just trying to build up a modern industrial plant for making durable consumer goods, they needed to build the industrial plant to build the machine tools to efficiently and competitively produce said consumer durables. This is the whole problem of jumping from steam engines that can be made, in the 1850s, using fairly simple tools that even a blacksmith could make do with in a pinch to needing the means to manufacture the highly sophisticated, precise machine tools necessary to make the tools to make combustion engines that are even comparable to Californian product. There's several leaps of technology in there that, as they're building it up, California is already on the edge of making totally obsolete anyway.

Said leaps also get in the way of California leapfrogging the Industrial Revolution past oil to green energy but it might almost be easier to push things in that direction by saying, "Hey we can help you build batteries, wind turbines and hydropower that's less messy, adaptable and doesn't depend on oil or coal" than turbocharging the path that was taken. From a more cynical perspective such an approach may also benefit industrialists more given that, even by this period, miner strikes were already pretty bloody affairs and saying, "Hey we have a way to close the mines and put a stop to that mess" would be pretty attractive for a number of heads of state.

 

[SirKaid]

"oil is useful for all of these things but we're implementing something that's even better that anyone can build anywhere that won't depend on resources that are only available in hard to get at/politically volatile places."

Click to shrink...

Except that California itself doesn't really have that stuff yet. As others have stated, 90% of the things that make the modern world run are based at least in part on oil.

 

[aeqnai]

Cali has a fair amount of green programs and companies and technologies. But not enough to go completely green even IRL where they're still sitting relatively pretty economically and have every reason to be trying (and do seem to have that goal for their future).

In 1850-something, with the complete absence of the global trade that provides the necessary resources and parts for those techs, and in what is flatly an economic crisis that is only not seeing people starving and destitute by the millions because of quickwitted and extensive government intervention? Green is more or less a pipe-dream in the short term, and it's quite likely that the existing support structures will be dismantled out of sheer pragmatism and practical concerns.

Now, when California has ridden out the current instability, made long-term and large-scale trade possible again, and isn't dealing with any of the possible wars or disasters it might face, becoming less and less fossil-fuel dependent will become possible again. When the rest of the world has adopted significant amounts of uptime tech, Cali, or even a different state which has the knowledge and goals, may become oil-free completely. But that is wayyyyy beyond the current point of the timeline.

 

[LHB]

Except that California itself doesn't really have that stuff yet. As others have stated, 90% of the things that make the modern world run are based at least in part on oil.

Click to shrink...

Cali has a fair amount of green programs and companies and technologies. But not enough to go completely green even IRL where they're still sitting relatively pretty economically and have every reason to be trying (and do seem to have that goal for their future).

In 1850-something, with the complete absence of the global trade that provides the necessary resources and parts for those techs, and in what is flatly an economic crisis that is only not seeing people starving and destitute by the millions because of quickwitted and extensive government intervention? Green is more or less a pipe-dream in the short term, and it's quite likely that the existing support structures will be dismantled out of sheer pragmatism and practical concerns.

Now, when California has ridden out the current instability, made long-term and large-scale trade possible again, and isn't dealing with any of the possible wars or disasters it might face, becoming less and less fossil-fuel dependent will become possible again. When the rest of the world has adopted significant amounts of uptime tech, Cali, or even a different state which has the knowledge and goals, may become oil-free completely. But that is wayyyyy beyond the current point of the timeline.

Click to shrink...

California, as of June 2018 which predates the ISOT by a few months, produces 29% of all of its electricity from renewable sources which doesn't include large hydro that is responsible for another 14%. It also has very robust wind and solar production sectors and the largest source of rare earth minerals in the continental US which shut down do to Chinese competition rather than lack of resources. That's before going into however many tons of material could be recouped with a more vigorous recycling program/salvaging from goods on ships in port at Oakland and San Pedro, two of the largest shipping hubs of 2018 in the Pacific Rim, at the time of the ISOT. The tools, resources and technology absolutely exist within the state of California to sustain what currently exists, expand renewable energy production and build more batteries. In fact in the case of the ISOT it's quite likely the renewable sections of the grid were the only sources of electrical power that did not see serious disruption due to lack of supplies. That gives even more reason to push for expanding renewables as not only are they readily available they're much more reliable.

That's before going into all the other stuff that could follow but saying California is too far from even considering going green is not supported by the evidence. It's in a place right now that it is quite feasible for the state to hit 50% renewable power, at current growth rates, by 2020 and 100% before the end of the following decade. In the case of the ISOT that will be delayed but not by much especially when renewables are the one source of power that aren't disrupted by the ISOT. Coal, natural gas, nuclear and other similar sources depended on regular deliveries from outside of the state to keep going which no longer exist. Natural gas is going to be the biggest wrench since it is safe to assume California's consumption of natural gas, as of 1851, outstrips the entire planet's existing production of that material. It'd be faster and easier to crank out more solar panels, wind turbines and build more hydroelectric dams than it would to negotiate production rights, build up nonexistent infrastructure and ramp up production of a resource that is literally not being exploited at all.

That doesn't mean oil is out of the picture as that is still necessary for transportation, particularly for trucking, but it does mean there's strong incentives in place for California to get off of coal, natural gas and nuclear energy very quickly and there's the means to do so on hand right now. From there it becomes a question of electrifying rail, building up charging station capacity and passing laws (that probably won't face much opposition) mandating all future auto and ship engine production must be electric. It's quite doable for California to go green and there's even stronger incentives, post-ISOT, to do that than pre-ISOT.

 

[Flectarn]

I can only send you to read about oil drilling in Riddings, Derbyshire, England owned by one James Young (figured out how to distill oil into paraffin), who earned so much on oil since 1847 (till 1850 collected in a coal mine, then drilled)

Click to shrink...

per wiki, he never drilled for the oil, he collected it from the mine, and then developed a method of producing synthetic oil from the coal

 

[Midnighter13]

California, as of June 2018 which predates the ISOT by a few months, produces 29% of all of its electricity from renewable sources which doesn't include large hydro that is responsible for another 14%. It also has very robust wind and solar production sectors and the largest source of rare earth minerals in the continental US which shut down do to Chinese competition rather than lack of resources.

Click to shrink...

Okay, you are conflating oil with electricity generation. I don't think its unreasonable for CA to move rapidly to a more renewable based electrical grid, but oil is not the fossil fuel of choice for electrical power plants. Coal, natural gas, and Uranium are more widely used fuels. The first is still available (though perhaps not in the volumes needed and within easy transport range) but not used widely in CA at the moment, the second is unavailable completely (you are totally correct on that), while the third is used much more slowly and there are plenty of nearby deposits to mine both inside and outside the state/country of California. But as I'm sure you realize, you can't use hydro-power or solar-power to make asphalt, and making battery operated planes is going to be expensive and extremely difficult on a large scale. Oil is used for so much, that even replacing our entire transport infrastructure leaves 17% of oil demand, and that's after replacing every oil driven vehicle in every industry oil data use for CA 2016.

That's before going into all the other stuff that could follow but saying California is too far from even considering going green is not supported by the evidence. It's in a place right now that it is quite feasible for the state to hit 50% renewable power, at current growth rates, by 2020 and 100% before the end of the following decade. In the case of the ISOT that will be delayed but not by much especially when renewables are the one source of power that aren't disrupted by the ISOT. Coal, natural gas, nuclear and other similar sources depended on regular deliveries from outside of the state to keep going which no longer exist.

Click to shrink...

Nuclear power plants will be just fine, they last a long time and Uranium is pretty easily accessible where they are. Again though, a 100% renewable electrical grid is not going to replace millions of oil driven cars, buses, planes, etc. Nor will it replace the various industrial or medical uses.

That doesn't mean oil is out of the picture as that is still necessary for transportation, particularly for trucking, but it does mean there's strong incentives in place for California to get off of coal, natural gas and nuclear energy very quickly and there's the means to do so on hand right now. From there it becomes a question of electrifying rail, building up charging station capacity and passing laws (that probably won't face much opposition) mandating all future auto and ship engine production must be electric. It's quite doable for California to go green and there's even stronger incentives, post-ISOT, to do that than pre-ISOT.

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Honestly you had me until you hit 'mandating all future auto and ship engine production must be electric'. There is no way that's feasible. Beside the fact that it would require a massive investment in new electric infrastructure for vehicles (something CA is not going to be able to afford short or even medium term) there is the problem that battery tech is just not there yet. Fact is, gas vehicles can go further, and have more power than electric ones. Both of those will be important for driving outside California where if there are roads, they will be rough and small. Even inside CA, a car with a full tank can go from LA to San Francisco on a single tank. Electric cars can't do that yet. California's new government is not going to start passing laws to further damage their already crippled transport network and infrastructure. Oh, and if they did? Where are they going to find the money to build all the new factories to build the tools to build the infrastructure they can't afford? The private market won't be able to supply those sorts of components or services for a while because starting up new factories takes time and money, and the later is in short supply given the financial issues with the new banking system.

 

[Nyvis]

Nuclear power plants will be just fine, they last a long time and Uranium is pretty easily accessible where they are. Again though, a 100% renewable electrical grid is not going to replace millions of oil driven cars, buses, planes, etc. Nor will it replace the various industrial or medical uses.

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Electrical cars and buses are a thing. Planes are dicey though, I agree. Some of the commercial uses can be reduced by cracking down on single use plastics.
Medical isn't going anywhere though.

 

[me.me.here]

Honestly you had me until you hit 'mandating all future auto and ship engine production must be electric'. There is no way that's feasible. Beside the fact that it would require a massive investment in new electric infrastructure for vehicles (something CA is not going to be able to afford short or even medium term) there is the problem that battery tech is just not there yet. Fact is, gas vehicles can go further, and have more power than electric ones. Both of those will be important for driving outside California where if there are roads, they will be rough and small. Even inside CA, a car with a full tank can go from LA to San Francisco on a single tank. Electric cars can't do that yet. California's new government is not going to start passing laws to further damage their already crippled transport network and infrastructure. Oh, and if they did? Where are they going to find the money to build all the new factories to build the tools to build the infrastructure they can't afford? The private market won't be able to supply those sorts of components or services for a while because starting up new factories takes time and money, and the later is in short supply given the financial issues with the new banking system.

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It's more likely than you'd think. I agree that laws for a 100% electric mandate are unrealistic, but there are strong motivations for moving to electric vehicles and charging stations and such. Namely, Cali wants to prop up Tesla and other manufacturers to keep it's economy from crashing as much in the short term. Also, since large chunks of its infrastructure are totaled and need to be rebuilt they can get away with building them as electric based rather than gas/oil based. It would be cheaper than building infrastructure based on gas/oil and them replacing it in 20-30 years before those stations paid for themselves.

 

[Dark Mage]

Actually, starting in the 1830's engineers were experimenting and testing battery powered carriages and trains.

The biggest problem they faced was limited range do to battery life.

If California can provide cheap, long-life, rechargeable batteries, they could undermine the development of the internal combustion engine for vehicles.

That there should help decrease the need for oil.

 

[Midnighter13]

Actually, starting in the 1830's engineers were experimenting and testing battery powered carriages and trains.

The biggest problem they faced was limited range do to battery life.

If California can provide cheap, long-life, rechargeable batteries, they could undermine the development of the internal combustion engine for vehicles.

That there should help decrease the need for oil.

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while true, are modern batteries capable of being built in downtime factories, even with uptime knowledge? Because modern batteries are kinda complicated, and certainly require precision construction and well... steam powered factories using first or second generation tools are just not going to cut it. So either CA exports batteries (good for them, but the rest of the world would be leery of dependency) or they will share lower tech batteries which won't be as good as internal combustion engines.

 

[Highlord]

while true, are modern batteries capable of being built in downtime factories, even with uptime knowledge? Because modern batteries are kinda complicated, and certainly require precision construction and well... steam powered factories using first or second generation tools are just not going to cut it. So either CA exports batteries (good for them, but the rest of the world would be leery of dependency) or they will share lower tech batteries which won't be as good as internal combustion engines.

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Modern long-life batteries are Lith Ion, rather than lead acid. Those are beyond downtime capabilities.

What Cali can do is corner the market on power generation to rapid-charge the Industrial Revolution. Oil isn't what bad, it's the emissions from burning it. That in mind, getting the massive factories and urban expansion to use local SOFC's produced initially in California would nip a lot of that in the bud. There's even versions that can be used to power large seagoing vessels. Or hell, hydrogen power. One of the biggest, if admittedly not only, reasons neither in more widespread use is because of the already existing infrastructure and the people that own it being in the way.*

Which is what I was getting at earlier, but didn't articulate well. A massive problem we have in real live is the entrenched Way Things Are and amoral kleptocrats fucking up everything. In this story though, none of that is standing in the way, or at least, not to the level that can't be squashed by New Californian interests saying "We'll invest in your corporation/city/nation with our technology, infrastructure and expertise if you adopt [X]."

Spoiler

Which is why I actually alarm my Proper American family with my stance of "grab the moguls by the throat and tell them how things will be done.

 

[aeqnai]

Makes sense enough. Still think it's infeasible in the short term, though, simply because there's hardly any money around to spend on that in the Cali economy here. Or on much of anything, they're living on existing resources and the financial equivalent of duct tape and prayers, and they will be until someone manages to get proper trade running again.

 

[Highlord]

Makes sense enough. Still think it's infeasible in the short term, though, simply because there's hardly any money around to spend on that in the Cali economy here. Or on much of anything, they're living on existing resources and the financial equivalent of duct tape and prayers, and they will be until someone manages to get proper trade running again.

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Oh, certainly. It'd be years, even a few decades, in the making. Still better than the century-plus of what we've gone through, only to be constantly stymied by some robber baron fucks at every turn when attempts at doing things better are made.