Low Tech vs Interstellar societies...

[spank]

During WW 2, Belgium was virtually cut off from using gasoline and other petroleum products by Germany. So, the Brussels public bus system switched to ammonia.

That's TL 4 running vehicles on ammonia successfully.

https://www.icfa-conference.org/doc/03-03-02_AMANO.pdf

Also quite prolific were wood gasifiers,

Germany had over 500,000 Holzgas vehicles and the werhmact had over 200,000. for example this Driving School tank.

FEMA actual wrote a guide on wood gas conversion in 1989!
"Construction of a Simplified Wood GasGenerator for Fueling Internal CombustionEngines in a Petroleum Emergency"
https://www.driveonwood.com/static/media/uploads/pdf/fema_plans.pdf

 

[Spinward Flow]

So, worry no more and accept the REALITY that both HYDROGEN and ELECTRICITY currently begin life as hydrocarbon fuels

I will not, because that's not the reality.
Hydrocarbon fuels are merely ONE WAY to generate hydrogen and electricity ... rather than being the exclusive / ONLY WAY to generate hydrogen and electricity.

For example ... nuclear power can generate hydrogen and electricity.
The reason why the Fukushima nuclear power plant "blew up" after the tsunami hit it was because of a process that produced hydrogen gas in the reactor core as the water levels dropped in the core. The Fukushima nuclear power plant was designed, construction and operation for the generation of electricity.

And solar power is intrinsically, at its core ... a nuclear power sourced way of generating electricity.
The nuclear reactor that powers solar power plants? THE LOCAL STAR ... powered by fusion.

Wind power is also, ironically, nuclear powered (albeit indirectly) by the "fusion reactor" of the LOCAL STAR inducing "weather" conditions at the planetary surface when there's an atmosphere.

Hydropower is produced by water "flowing downhill" in ways that can produce useful work (either mechanical and/or electrical).

And then there's this kind of Inconvenient Truth about the whole thing ...

Your turn.