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The backstory here begins 200 years ago, before the age of crude oil & electricity, when the best way to light a room was a lantern, and the best oil to burn in that lantern was oil from a sperm whale.
It burnt brighter and with less smoke or stink than other oils
The oil itself is found in the head of the sperm whale. It comes from a totally unique organ whose function remains a matter of debate - the spermaceti organ.
Whale oil is a long chain molecule unlike nearly anything else in the natural world, giving it unique qualities
So the numbers of whales being hunted and slaughtered rose sharply. The pursuit became legendary (Moby Dick was a sperm whale). People began to fret that the whales, once so plentiful, would soon be wiped out.
This was one of the early ecological panics.
Then along came crude oil, refined into kerosene.
Kerosene burnt far brighter than whale oil with v little smell (depending on the variety of crude - more on this in Material World).
And so, alongside other things like better candles, kerosene helped to replace whale oil
Whale oil consumption for lighting purposes certainly did drop to more or less nothing pretty quickly. And the whaling industry in the US diminished in the late 19th century too. Leaving many in the US to assume that the bars in this chart dropped to zero...
And this gave rise to that nugget you've probably heard before: that "crude oil saved the whales".
It was supercharged into the conventional wisdom by a 1996 paper about lighting from Nobel winning economist William Nordhaus.
He's mentioned it in various interviews ever since
And since it's a nice counterintuitive story ("Fossil fuels (briefly) SAVED the environment!") and since Nobel laureates hold lots of sway, it became a near accepted fact in the economic world. Indeed, I hadn't doubted it until I read J-B Fressoz's brilliant More & More & More
But here's the thing:
Nordhaus was WRONG.
Because while whale oil wasn't used for lighting any more it WAS used as an ingredient in cosmetics and pharmaceuticals and, most of all, as a lubricant.
As I said, it's a v v unusual substance. V hard to emulate.
Look what happened next.
In the 20th century, far from falling, the number of sperm whales being killed ROSE.
And not just a little. To multiples of those 19th century highs.
Whale oil might not have been going into lanterns but it was going into engines as a lubricant. At unprecedented rates 
So no: kerosene didn't save the whales. So what did cause those bars to fall (they're now at near zero, thankfully)...?
In short: a whaling ban. Governments stepped in.
And in the face of that, in the 1970s businesses frantically began searching for substitutes for spermaceti
They worked out how to create the long-chain esters in whale oil synthetically and they also found a natural replacement: the oil from the jojoba plant. Added to lubricants this was just as good as whale oil.
So the whales were saved!
But a lot later than you might have thought
So why does this matter today?
Well, we are at another inflection point, with a lively debate between those who believe technology, left more or less to its own devices, will deliver solutions to climate change and those who believe nothing will happen without govt intervention
If you believe, as Nordhaus did, that kerosene saved the whales, essentially without any intervention, then you might be more inclined to believe something similar will happen all over again.
But it turns out that DIDN'T happen.
Which might lead you to the opposite conclusion
Anyway, all of the above
is a v condensed version of an article I posted this morning.
For more of these stories (this is actually the first in a series on "forgotten materials" we carried on exploiting long after we thought we'd stopped), do subscribe! edconway.substack.com/p/no-kerosene-
is a v condensed version of an article I posted this morning.
For more of these stories (this is actually the first in a series on "forgotten materials" we carried on exploiting long after we thought we'd stopped), do subscribe! edconway.substack.com/p/no-kerosene-
20th century whaling not done for energy, lighting, or lubrication by nations with widespread access to refined petroleum. The irony is oil-fueled whaling fleets increased the efficiency of whale harvesting for nations still in the pre-industrial age, or whale meat eaters.
Thank you this is a very informative piece. It almost has a hint of ‘The Prize’ but with respect to Whale Oil. We are glad the ban was legislated for.
I researched this myself and came to same conclusion as Nordhaus. Strongest evidence for the view that kerosene saved the whales is that whalers actually overproduced oil in 1858, with 64% not making a profit because consumers were already switching to cheaper kerosene, a process
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Hello, please find the unroll here: threadreaderapp.com/thread/1873708 Share this if you think it's interesting. 
Holy crap, and wow what an interesting article and thread. Just ordered More, More & More.
I wonder how hard (if possible) it’d be to grow an artificial whale gland in a lab now that creates the oil?
The problem is Ed many are pushing solar and wind as an alternative energy source but they are too unreliable for a modern economy. Nuclear is the only clean, reliable alternative and SMRs are part of that solution. The question is more about what exactly government should do.
Reduction in worldwide whale populations has lead to the rising CO2 in the atmosphere. Whales are great for CO2 capture. They sequester an average of 33 tons of CO2 when they die and sink to the bottom of the ocean. Plus best environment for plankton is whale shit. Plankton
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Pre-WW2 85yrs ago USDOD, then DeptOfWar, selectively bred 50%-oil algae to replace diesel with biodiesel
Fast forward to a pilot project to develop a repeatable algae-grower for then Gov.JanBrewer AZ USA with EPA head Siemens ASU libraries Phoenix 10M-gal/day plant Mgr&Crew
+
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Thank you. I'm telling this tale to my students every semester (as part of my energy transition lecture). So glad to finally be able to tell the whole story.
Will rising gas prices lead to a coal resurgence in Europe? 
Recent geopolitical tensions are pushing up gas costs, potentially making coal more competitive for power generation. This shift could increase demand for carbon permits.
#EnergyMarkets #CarbonTrading
Recent geopolitical tensions are pushing up gas costs, potentially making coal more competitive for power generation. This shift could increase demand for carbon permits.
#EnergyMarkets #CarbonTrading
Technologies determine whether we can solve climate change.
Government policies determine whether we will solve climate change.
Did Lignum vitae, the wood, follow a similar arc?
Very hard, oily & tough it was used as bearing blocks especially for stern tubes in shops & other smaller items
V slow growing & so I guess the use > replacement
Great story. The same for coal saving trees. But moving to denser fuels helped create higher heat processes which makes our modern life comfortable (if you’re not one of the billions without adequate energy). You might argue denser fuels and higher heat also made 8 billion people
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One my engineering tutors at college covered this when I was 16, he wanted us all to know about the myth and the reality.
And specifically how such myths can cause potential breakthroughs to be delayed and or overlooked.
Thanks for the reminder Ed 
I am just finishing the book. Great job and thank you, I would recommend it highly!
Very interesting. Do you have any book recommendations on other "early ecological panics?"
Nordhaus is often wrong, but more importantly he doesn’t have a Nobel prize. There is no Nobel prize for economics. It was made up by Swedish bankers for their own self interest
Casterra CEO Yoash Zohar sees potential in castor oil plants for carbon-neutral biofuel.
With projects in Zambia and Kenya, Africa’s marginal lands and smallholder farmers could tap into this growing market.
David Whitehouse reports
shorturl.at/7rxyZ
shorturl.at/7rxyZ
Wasn’t sperm whale oil even used as lubricant in the first A-bomb over Hiroshima?
Could one make a similar argument for wood burning/biomass? In absolute terms wood burning/biomass never reduced although in percentage terms it’s reduced drastically. Like a whaling ban, do we need a wood burning/biomass ban?
An excellent piece of research into the past that offers wisdom for addressing an issue in the present.
And a reminder that systems don’t just evolve on their own to be ‘better’, they evolve in response to existential challenges.
Why did it drop to zero again at the end of the chart? Could it have been that cosmetic products etc. where also produced from crude hence oil and gas saving the wales twice?
There are plenty of examples of Nobel Laureates who have gone a bit nuts, so yes do double fact check them. 
Correct retrospectively. If there had not been an alternative to whale oil for lanterns the resources would’ve been depleted sooner or completely. Until we find a suitable alternative change will NOT happen. Resilience is not being built in to promote transition that’s not viable
Yeah, the problem being that that specific claim proved to be untrue. How that relates to any further claims is unclear.
Nice article, and great book by the way. Though we are not going to be able to regulate our way out of this one. Energy is a primary input into everything. People will not vote to get poorer when they realise what they have been signed up for.
tweets like this are little silver coins in the river of sewage that now passes for social media !
Leaving everything for 100% up to the markets doesn't work. Just like leaving up everything for 100% to governments.
As usual the story id more complex than the propogandist would have you think.
Your data does not support your hypothesis. The whaling reduction due to the introduction of kerosene in the late 1800s was real. It was only later when whale oil was used for other purposes that whaling was banned in 1971.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) has cut its stake in the Dangote refinery from 20% to 7.2%, raising questions about Nigeria's oil production challenges and investment strategy.
has more
shorturl.at/MiOQC
shorturl.at/MiOQC
Zero evidence that human emissions are driving climate change.
It's a massive hoax with plenty of money to "go missing".
The Soviets needlessly caught a whole lot of whales during that later period. It is a significant part of the story worth mentioning:
There were fewer countries involved in whale hunting and refining than there are currently in fossil fuel extraction. IF all of those governments can agree on a ban, AND the resulting spike in energy prices can be ameliorated, then sure, science and industry could transition.
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Sourced from across X
It’s over 1,000km from Berlin to Paris
There’s now a direct daytime train between them, that takes 8 hours and costs just €59. Leave at 10am, arrive 6pm.
And… it’s just 1% the carbon emissions of the equivalent flight
For the first time ever the world‘s largest auto market, China, will sell more electric vehicles than internal combustion engines
The future is electric. Compete or perish there is no other option
I don’t think people appreciate how cheap this is.
Half the cost of pumped hydro.
Can be done anywhere on Earth.
Intraday energy storage is a solved problem.
Quote
Gniewomir Flis
@gnievchenko
Nahhh this is wild: 
company received average bid of $66.3/kWh for battery 
systems. Probably got a lot to do with the 16GWh size of the order but this is a small peak into the future of stationary storage.
ess-news.com/2024/12/09/pow
company received average bid of $66.3/kWh for battery systems. Probably got a lot to do with the 16GWh size of the order but this is a small peak into the future of stationary storage.
ess-news.com/2024/12/09/pow
BREAKING: GEORGE IS FREE
George has just been released from HMP The Mount after being sentenced to 2 years in prison last August for climbing a gantry over the M25.
Support the 19 other Just Stop Oil political prisoners: chuffed.org/project/suppor