WI: No coke smelting?

The POD here is that the method of smelting metals using coke doesn't become widespread, charcoal remains the main fuel used in metallurgy, and Abraham Darby instead wins fame as a pioneer of sustainable forest techniques. What effect would this have on world history?
 
There just aren't enough trees in Europe to power the industrial revolution, even with improved forestry techniques. There are too many people and too great a demand to continue to supply Europe's growing population and industry with wood. The switch to coal is probably what saved Europe from being deforested completely. Improved forestry could hold off the situation for a while but soon Britain is going to be importing huge quantities of charcoal from the US, Canada, and elsewhere, most likely the Baltic. British industry is going to suffer and securing supplies of charcoal is going to become a major concern for the empires of Europe. In OTL by 1880 the British iron industry alone was using seven million tons of coke a year and that doesn't include any other uses.
 
Also. How on earth are you going to stop the use of coal? It's been used for ages (near surface coal seams) as a heat source, and use has to expand as Europe gets deforested. Why on earth would it never occur to iron makers to use coal? And once coal is generally used, coking it is obvious - you're just doing to coal what you would do to wood to make charcoal.

We're approaching ASB territory fast, imo.
 
Also. How on earth are you going to stop the use of coal? It's been used for ages (near surface coal seams) as a heat source, and use has to expand as Europe gets deforested. Why on earth would it never occur to iron makers to use coal? And once coal is generally used, coking it is obvious - you're just doing to coal what you would do to wood to make charcoal.

We're approaching ASB territory fast, imo.

Well, I'm given to understand that the main problem is that coal and coke tend to give off a lot of sulphur when they burn, which migrates into the metal and weakens it. IOTL people didn't discover a way round this till the reverberating furnaces at the end of the 17th century. Now it might be that their discovery was inevitable given the economic pressures of the time, but given that they took so long to invent I'm inclined to think otherwise.
 
Well, I'm given to understand that the main problem is that coal and coke tend to give off a lot of sulphur when they burn, which migrates into the metal and weakens it. IOTL people didn't discover a way round this till the reverberating furnaces at the end of the 17th century. Now it might be that their discovery was inevitable given the economic pressures of the time, but given that they took so long to invent I'm inclined to think otherwise.
True. But weak iron that you can make is much better than good iron you cant (because of lack of wood).
 
True. But weak iron that you can make is much better than good iron you can't (because of lack of wood).

I think that's what would happen. The problem is that there just isn't enough wood in Europe to keep the growing population warm let alone power industrial production. They'll use charcoal for high quality metal applications and coal for everything else. By 1860 Britain alone was mining somewhere around 100 million tons of coal a year and there's no way you can produce that volume of charcoal.
 
I think that's what would happen. The problem is that there just isn't enough wood in Europe to keep the growing population warm let alone power industrial production. They'll use charcoal for high quality metal applications and coal for everything else. By 1860 Britain alone was mining somewhere around 100 million tons of coal a year and there's no way you can produce that volume of charcoal.

Well I think you can make briquettes out of things other than charcoal, like for example the inedible parts of crops. I'm not sure whether this could be heated hot enough for metallurgy, but it would do for domestic use, and would take at least some of the strain off of wood supplies.

Then again, I agree that charcoal wouldn't be causing anything like OTL's Industrial Revolution. So do people here think that technology would stall at around its 1700 level, or would it keep advancing, albeit at a much slower rate than IOTL?
 
Incidentally, and given that this would be following on from the age of exploration, I wonder if we might see plantations of fast-growing Chinese bamboo spring up around Europe.
 
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