Released July 22, 2024 | SUGAR LAND
en
Editor's note: This is the second in a series of articles dealing with the global implications of the energy transition.
July 22, 2024--Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--It would be hard to identify anything more foundational to the civilization of the developed world than the availability of cheap, plentiful and energy-dense oil, gas and coal. As half the world decides this year on many issues, including the idea of weaning off this life-style changing energy, the challenges are immense.
Observing this dependence/addiction to fossil fuels, Daniel Yergin, in his oil history volume entitled The Prize, points out that anthropologists refer to the modern age as the "Hydrocarbon Society."
With concerns about carbon dioxide and other emissions also creating a "hydrocarbon climate," the question arises as to whether, and at what cost, could something that began as the hydrocarbon society be maintained with any other fuel or fuel mix.
As Industrial Info monitors energy projects of all sorts--fossil and renewable--we will consider what fossil fuels provide--so many things that generations have grown up surrounded by that they take it all for granted--to understand the ask that's being made of wind, solar, hydrogen, ammonia, geothermal, and other replacements.
Stops on the world-altering journey will include Titusville, Pennsylvania, 1859; the Chicago World's Fair, 1893; Spindletop, Texas, 1901; Henry Ford, Detroit, Michigan 1908, and others.
And, while the use of another fossil fuel, coal, is traced back as far as 3000 BC in China, and began making steam for rail and maritime transportation by the early 1800s, this story will focus on the growth of oil and gas in the U.S.
Energy for Every-Night Lights
It all may have started with olive oil and animal fat. Humans have long been dissatisfied with the sun's tyranny, limiting its illumination to either side of 12 hours. The earliest civilizations, in what's now known as the Middle East, used olive oil and animal fat to fire lamps and candles aimed at extending their daylight.
This desire for light also prompted the drilling of the first oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania.
A shortage of olives in the New World compared to their abundance in Mesopotamia and areas of the Middle East had caused Americans to turn to whale oil for lamp fuel. But whales were treated much like the buffalo--a huge mammal slaughtered for a tiny part of its benefit. Like the buffalo, whales became scarce, but returning to darkness at sundown was not an option. There must be another way!
Crude oil seeps in Pennsylvania and elsewhere over the millennia had hinted at a supply of fuel from life that had already been dead for millions of years. And the kerosene derived from that oil was relatively smokeless, even if it still was a dangerous fire hazard in the predominantly wood structures of that day. The 1871 Great Chicago Fire may or may not have been started by a cow and a kerosene lamp in the O'Leary's barn--but it is certainly possible that kerosene was involved.
Titusville
August 27, 1859, was the day that the self-titled "Colonel" Edwin Drake and his crew struck oil at 3,000 feet, using a1,500-year-old Chinese system called salt-boring. It came forth in such abundance that it had to be hastily gathered in spare whiskey barrels--a unit of measure still employed today.
Its light was treasured, as Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister wrote in a homemaking book entitled American Woman's Home or Principles of Domestic Science. "Good kerosene gives a light which leaves little to be desired."
Titusville started an oil rush that was interrupted by the Civil War and ended by the quick depletion of the forest of wells that sprang up around it. But it did help create some of the first energy infrastructure, which involved systems for hauling those barrels by train or wagon to stores and homes across the nation.
The Light Bulb Comes On
Then came competition from Thomas Edison and the electric light bulb, starting in 1879. Definitely smoke free, it also was much less likely to burn down a city. But massive new infrastructure would be needed to make it readily available to anyone beyond the rich--and that would require extensive investment in generators (fired mostly by coal), transmission lines, and the poles from which to safely suspend the wires. And a switch from direct current to alternating current to allow the power to travel the great distances needed, marked by a huge battle between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla before the latter won out.
The 1893 Chicago World's Fair (also known as the Columbian Exhibition, involving more than 40 countries) helped popularize the new source of light. Approximately 93,000 light bulbs supplied by Edison's competitor, Westinghouse, fired up the imaginations of many of the 27 million visitors--and the days of kerosene were clearly numbered. By 1902, 18 million incandescent bulbs were in use nationwide. The incandescent bulb's greater safety certainly caught the attention of a city whose memory was still seared by its inferno 22 years earlier.
At that point, another light bulb went off in the heads of John D. Rockefeller and his kin, who had built fortunes on the now-fading prospects of oil as simply a vehicle for night lights. They suddenly needed a new market to maintain their dominance--and their wealth and power.
Greasing the Wheels of Progress
Fortunately for them, a new transportation device was starting to swap horse power for fire power, which needed a different oil product--gasoline--which had formerly been just a massive waste product in the refining process.
In the very early days of self-moving (auto-mobile) motor cars, their most popular power sources were batteries and steam. That's because gasoline, the other option, was scarce and, therefore, expensive. But batteries then suffered from the same limitations as today--they were short in range and costly to maintain. And for steam--while coal and water were plentiful, the vehicles themselves were noisy, dirty and balky.
At this point the automobile was little more than a toy for the rich, hardly a game-changer for the masses.
The next key moment for today's mobile society happened on January 6, 1901. That day Patillo Higgins, Captain (his title was real) Anthony F. Lucas, John Guffey and John Galey set the modern world ablaze. Spindletop, in southeast Texas, spewed 75,000 barrels per day for weeks across south Texas before it could be tamed, proving that there would be enough gasoline to fuel every automobile the nation could build and sell.
The lifestyle that well introduced has yet to be tamed.
The only thing lacking now was a way to make automobiles themselves as plentiful and cheap as the gasoline that would run them. We will drill deeper into that next time, and how "a car in every garage" redefined work and redistributed population, among other tsunamic changes.
Whether or not Mr. Ford had a better idea, his thinking helped drive society to where it is now.
Next time: Fossil fuels create a new world order.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).
July 22, 2024--Written by Paul Wiseman for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--It would be hard to identify anything more foundational to the civilization of the developed world than the availability of cheap, plentiful and energy-dense oil, gas and coal. As half the world decides this year on many issues, including the idea of weaning off this life-style changing energy, the challenges are immense.
Observing this dependence/addiction to fossil fuels, Daniel Yergin, in his oil history volume entitled The Prize, points out that anthropologists refer to the modern age as the "Hydrocarbon Society."
With concerns about carbon dioxide and other emissions also creating a "hydrocarbon climate," the question arises as to whether, and at what cost, could something that began as the hydrocarbon society be maintained with any other fuel or fuel mix.
As Industrial Info monitors energy projects of all sorts--fossil and renewable--we will consider what fossil fuels provide--so many things that generations have grown up surrounded by that they take it all for granted--to understand the ask that's being made of wind, solar, hydrogen, ammonia, geothermal, and other replacements.
Stops on the world-altering journey will include Titusville, Pennsylvania, 1859; the Chicago World's Fair, 1893; Spindletop, Texas, 1901; Henry Ford, Detroit, Michigan 1908, and others.
And, while the use of another fossil fuel, coal, is traced back as far as 3000 BC in China, and began making steam for rail and maritime transportation by the early 1800s, this story will focus on the growth of oil and gas in the U.S.
Energy for Every-Night Lights
It all may have started with olive oil and animal fat. Humans have long been dissatisfied with the sun's tyranny, limiting its illumination to either side of 12 hours. The earliest civilizations, in what's now known as the Middle East, used olive oil and animal fat to fire lamps and candles aimed at extending their daylight.
This desire for light also prompted the drilling of the first oil well at Titusville, Pennsylvania.
A shortage of olives in the New World compared to their abundance in Mesopotamia and areas of the Middle East had caused Americans to turn to whale oil for lamp fuel. But whales were treated much like the buffalo--a huge mammal slaughtered for a tiny part of its benefit. Like the buffalo, whales became scarce, but returning to darkness at sundown was not an option. There must be another way!
Crude oil seeps in Pennsylvania and elsewhere over the millennia had hinted at a supply of fuel from life that had already been dead for millions of years. And the kerosene derived from that oil was relatively smokeless, even if it still was a dangerous fire hazard in the predominantly wood structures of that day. The 1871 Great Chicago Fire may or may not have been started by a cow and a kerosene lamp in the O'Leary's barn--but it is certainly possible that kerosene was involved.
Titusville
August 27, 1859, was the day that the self-titled "Colonel" Edwin Drake and his crew struck oil at 3,000 feet, using a1,500-year-old Chinese system called salt-boring. It came forth in such abundance that it had to be hastily gathered in spare whiskey barrels--a unit of measure still employed today.
Its light was treasured, as Harriet Beecher Stowe and her sister wrote in a homemaking book entitled American Woman's Home or Principles of Domestic Science. "Good kerosene gives a light which leaves little to be desired."
Titusville started an oil rush that was interrupted by the Civil War and ended by the quick depletion of the forest of wells that sprang up around it. But it did help create some of the first energy infrastructure, which involved systems for hauling those barrels by train or wagon to stores and homes across the nation.
The Light Bulb Comes On
Then came competition from Thomas Edison and the electric light bulb, starting in 1879. Definitely smoke free, it also was much less likely to burn down a city. But massive new infrastructure would be needed to make it readily available to anyone beyond the rich--and that would require extensive investment in generators (fired mostly by coal), transmission lines, and the poles from which to safely suspend the wires. And a switch from direct current to alternating current to allow the power to travel the great distances needed, marked by a huge battle between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla before the latter won out.
The 1893 Chicago World's Fair (also known as the Columbian Exhibition, involving more than 40 countries) helped popularize the new source of light. Approximately 93,000 light bulbs supplied by Edison's competitor, Westinghouse, fired up the imaginations of many of the 27 million visitors--and the days of kerosene were clearly numbered. By 1902, 18 million incandescent bulbs were in use nationwide. The incandescent bulb's greater safety certainly caught the attention of a city whose memory was still seared by its inferno 22 years earlier.
At that point, another light bulb went off in the heads of John D. Rockefeller and his kin, who had built fortunes on the now-fading prospects of oil as simply a vehicle for night lights. They suddenly needed a new market to maintain their dominance--and their wealth and power.
Greasing the Wheels of Progress
Fortunately for them, a new transportation device was starting to swap horse power for fire power, which needed a different oil product--gasoline--which had formerly been just a massive waste product in the refining process.
In the very early days of self-moving (auto-mobile) motor cars, their most popular power sources were batteries and steam. That's because gasoline, the other option, was scarce and, therefore, expensive. But batteries then suffered from the same limitations as today--they were short in range and costly to maintain. And for steam--while coal and water were plentiful, the vehicles themselves were noisy, dirty and balky.
At this point the automobile was little more than a toy for the rich, hardly a game-changer for the masses.
The next key moment for today's mobile society happened on January 6, 1901. That day Patillo Higgins, Captain (his title was real) Anthony F. Lucas, John Guffey and John Galey set the modern world ablaze. Spindletop, in southeast Texas, spewed 75,000 barrels per day for weeks across south Texas before it could be tamed, proving that there would be enough gasoline to fuel every automobile the nation could build and sell.
The lifestyle that well introduced has yet to be tamed.
The only thing lacking now was a way to make automobiles themselves as plentiful and cheap as the gasoline that would run them. We will drill deeper into that next time, and how "a car in every garage" redefined work and redistributed population, among other tsunamic changes.
Whether or not Mr. Ford had a better idea, his thinking helped drive society to where it is now.
Next time: Fossil fuels create a new world order.
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking more than 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).
