TIL that whales were saved from massacre when kerosene appeared (1860s) because, until then, whale oil was widely used as illumination fuel.
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Whale oil - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_oil
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whale_oil
It's crazy to think that we almost brought a class of animals to extinction, all because we had the arrogance to read in the dark.
Rome vs Carthage. Romans beat them up then poured tons of salt on the fields so that they could never grow crops and rebuild. Just to be mean.
The salting was metaphorical in Rome's case, but both were deliberate genocides. It wasn't about "liking" buffalo, the extermination campaign was started because the Plains tribes needed buffalo. The public wouldn't tolerate an outright genocide, but they would tolerate the destruction of the herds.
We’ve killed off many other species simply by existing and expanding. And even more with what we do to the environment constantly.
Wait till you lean how many species go extinct per year.
We're currently in the middle of a mass extinction era, mostly caused by human industrialization
Fun fact in case anyone didn't already know but the diesel engine was originally powered by whale oil but it's such a resilient engine that it was later fueled by what was once considered a waste byproduct of gasoline refinement.
My understanding is it can actually run on a pretty wide variety of fuels (in general; not every specific model can run on a wide variety).
Biodiesel was gonna be the next big thing before EVs started gaining traction. Arnold drove around a Hummer that was modified to run on vegetable oil while he was governor.
Travel between the east and west of Australia is made difficult by a lifeless expanse called the Nullarbor Plain. In America, long haul travel is supported by the truck stops, which I understand to be huge complexes involving McDonald's and sometimes even entire malls. In Australia, it's a little different. Truckers and travellers are supported by the noble establishments known as chip shops. They sell chips. Sometimes with gravy. And there is always a shaker of chicken salt on a little table next to the door. And if you want some protein in your diet, then you can instead order one of Mrs Mac's Famous Beef Pies. Make sure to get a little squirty pack of tomato sauce. Many people have claimed certain things as universal Australian experiences and been wrong. Chip shops are the UNIVERSAL Australian icon.
There are chip shops on the Nullarbor Plain, but they're not connected to an electrical grid. Which means that until recently, you couldn't drive an electric car from Adelaide to Perth. But you can now. They installed electric car changers. And what powers the chargers? Why, a biodiesel generator that runs on waste oil from the chips.
Everything old is new again.
I was always told kerosene and diesel, in that order, were the products of interest. Standard Oil didn’t know what to do with gasoline because it was considered too dangerous and explosive to transport, so they bankrolled the development of the Otto cycle to power their own equipment.
Whale oil was also used as a raw material in chemical industry for a lot of things where it was replaced by mineral oil too, e.g. in the production of tensides for washing powder, and not at least was also used for the production of margarine, as fat was rare in the early 20th century.
But that's made from ambergrease which is produced in the digestive system of a whale and can be found once in a while on the beach too.
There was a railway built to my town which had a big industry supplying ice to the large cities in the south. There was a long conveyor belt built into the lake leading to a large building stuffed with saw dust that kept ice well into the summer. It created a lot of winter work for the locals that dried up after refrigeration was invented. The railway lost its usefulness and also got torn up. And now the bay doesn't even freeze anymore.
When did the bay stop freezing?
Fun fact to add: it gave farmers a winter income, right when they weren't busy.
It's been less and less for the last ever. It did freeze over solid, as did all the Great Lakes, about 10 years ago but that seems to be an outlier. Now there's been not much by the shore let alone any for ice fishers. I'm talking about Georgian Bay, off Lake Huron.
Wow, how did the bay know that we wouldn't need its ice any more? Nature's miracles never cease!
And then the drive towards petroleum started. We traded one terrible earth destroying thing for another.
Horses were saved by cars too. Before ICE cars, horses were treated like shit and worked to death.