Earth might be an aberration because we have google-quads of inexpensive hydrocarbons trapped underground. This cheap fuel source has resulted in large scale industry, unending technological development, and a system supporting a huge population.

Large fuel reserves might be a missing element in the Drake equation. Without it only biomass may be burned for fuel. Hence any intelligent species would take a more direct route to environmental destruction for any technological advance, ergo any such technological development might be self-defeating.

Oil from the North Slope in Alaska is now being produced at $200 per barrel, less than 20 years after production peaked in 1987. This depletion pattern might be inevitable (2nd law of thermodynamics) worldwide resulting in fossil fuel prices of $500 per energy-equivalent barrel within a 200 years. At this price (present value, year 2005) motorized transportation sits on a cusp of affordability. Below this a bicycle may have a motor-assist. Above this price people may only afford a bicycle without any motorized assist, unless it is used less often such as part of an expensive "hobby" of motorized bicycle riding. Regular transportation may revert to horse-drawn carriages, since horses are more capable than machines to process various kinds of biomass into locomotion, and are intelligent and flexible.

So many other aspects of our society are dependent on the same temporary fuel source. If we had to burn forests to fuel cars, they would fall into disuse pretty fast. Life may progress at a glacial pace without fossil fuels, or not progress at all.