If international trade halts, what are the remaining sources of energy

[Tyndmyr]

You don't bootstrap a societal rebuild with woodstove.

If society collapse in any capacity, energy production facility will provide a large advantage to any burgeoning civilisation.

Wood still gets used as a power source fairly frequently now, in lots of places. Roughly 12 mil Americans still use it for heating or cooking, for instance. It's not the *most* common, but it still gets used for a lot of applications. If you lose the more common options, it seems likely that people will fall back to what they know. It is also generally easier and faster to expand wood usage than many other options. Sure, water power is super efficient, but building new dams is challenging, and location specific.

Plus, we have no shortage of wood. The US generally has gained trees year over year for the past fifty years.

[Cikomyr2]

Wood still gets used as a power source fairly frequently now, in lots of places. Roughly 12 mil Americans still use it for heating or cooking, for instance. It's not the *most* common, but it still gets used for a lot of applications. If you lose the more common options, it seems likely that people will fall back to what they know. It is also generally easier and faster to expand wood usage than many other options. Sure, water power is super efficient, but building new dams is challenging, and location specific.

Plus, we have no shortage of wood. The US generally has gained trees year over year for the past fifty years.

Lumbering on a large scale is still heavily energy dependant, no? And you need to transport the lumber to the power plant, so unless you got a river lumber train..

Damn. I know the name of "letting lumber float down the river" in French, but not in English.

[Rockphed]

Plus, we have no shortage of wood. The US generally has gained trees year over year for the past fifty years.

If anything, burning more wood from fire-prone areas might help reduce the risk of wild-fire, assuming it is harvested using good practices. Good practices are probably a little more expensive in the short term and a little more profitable in the long term (since they reduce the risk of fire and result in healthier trees).

[gomipile]

Lumbering on a large scale is still heavily energy dependant, no? And you need to transport the lumber to the power plant, so unless you got a river lumber train..

Damn. I know the name of "letting lumber float down the river" in French, but not in English.

It's called "log driving," generally.

Also, sometimes manmade flumes are used instead of rivers, which I think might be the same word in French.