Suppose some climatic conditions were different in parts of Avalonia during the Carboniferous and Permian and the coal forests did not appear over what would become Britain, how would Britain have done over the industrial period?
Without coal, Britain was already developing some industrialization in the textile industry and steam engines of a sort were being developed. Could they have still continued if the primary fuel was peat or wood? And would other countries with coal reserves have been able to combine the steam engine with coal mining to create what Britain did? Belgium and Germany had substantial reserves but could they have done it without Britain's example?
Compared to other European countries, how would Britain have fared? Already, it had done well in the Napoleonic wars and owned substantial portions of India. But without the economic drivers of coal, would it have have been able to dominate the globe in the same way that it did in real life? And would it's internal stability have been as good as it was given that it didn't experience any violent change in government during the period? Would some of the other countries been able to conquer lands that Britain would have otherwise not taken? Or would economic progress not have advanced enough to allow much conquest at all?
And would coal have been able to take off elsewhere in the same way? And if not, would oil have taken off as well or would most fossil fuels have been ignored?
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