[Draken93]

Two completly different situations,

Today the problem is less the lack of ressources, but that we destroy the eco-system with our current technology. We can not just use another technologie to exploit a different kind of ressource. Instead we need a technology that has less consequences or even one that undoes the damage we already made.

Fossile oil reserves where not developed around 1800. They developed over millions of years. And actually they were already used in the middle east, china and myanmar way before europeans&americans started to use them to replace the shrinking and therefore more expensive supply of whale oil.

IMO the usage of petroleum was fueled(no pun intended) by the market and the rising price of whale blubber. It could have been used way earlier but was not lucrative.

Sadly the technologies that destroy our environment are still more lucrative then existing solutions that could solve our problem. That is especially if you look at the investments that are still made in this sector. We have the technologies to solve our problems, they are called renewable energies.

The problem is that we need a technology that takes over the market share that is currently taken by technologies that damage the environment. But that is very hard, as it would need to be more lucrative.

Just having the technology does not help, if people still use the damaging technologys. Cause they alone are enough to reach certain tipping points. And after those, no technology can save us even if it would undo damage that we caused earlier.