We used to kill whales so we could read at night
A historical energy transition
Entire industries will fade away over the energy transition. Over the course of history, economically superior sources of energy have quickly displaced incumbents and established new norms. In Australia, the coal mining regions will need to adapt if they are to avoid economic decline.1
Of course, coal mining isn’t the first, and won’t be the last industry to rise and fall as we quest for better forms of energy. Not so long ago, the house lamps of upper society were fuelled by dead whales.
The whaling industry is a relatively small and exceptionally horrible chapter in human’s journey from the discovery of fire to a necessarily frantic rush to stop burning oil, gas and coal. Oils and waxes derived from whales was used for lighting the homes and factories of the 1800s, and lubricating the machines of the industrial revolution. Whaling was a gold rush for entrepreneurs and labourers alike, until the supply dried up and it was replaced with cheaper alternatives.
This post talks about the history of whaling to illustrate the great, unpleasant lengths we would go to for candles. While not as viscerally horrific as whaling, the damage caused by burning fossil fuels is immeasurably greater. Hopefully we’ll look back on oil, gas and coal as similarly small eras in the history of energy.
Catching whales
There’s evidence of humans hunting whales as far back as 6000 BCE. The OG hunters would either use boats to force whales into shallow waters or harpoon them to something inflatable, wearing the whales out. Very early whaling was for the meat, although there was some utility to the bones and blubber.
From the 16th century onwards, whaling was for the oil. It was tough, unpleasant work for the crew. In the earlier days, whalers would catch whales and drag them to shore. There, the whale would be cut up and rendered in huge cauldrons, separating the fat out from the skin and muscle. Later, ships would process whales aboard their ships, as the whalers had to travel further out to sea for catches. The rendered oil would be stored in barrels below deck. The stench of whaling ships was supposed to be so strong that you could smell whaling ships before you could see them on the horizon.
Whaling, particularly for sperm whales, was immortalised the Herman Meville novel Moby Dick. Although they had long been hunted by indigenous Indonesians, they weren’t the focus of the growing whaling industry. This changed sometime in the early 1700s, when whalers started catching sperm whales off of New England.
Sperm whales were special because they have huge reserves of Spermaceti, a liquid wax, stored in their heads. It could be easily bailed out of their open heads into barrels and stored away, unlike the rendering process for whale oil.
Whale oil and sperm oil were integral to the industrial revolution. Whale oil was burned in lamps to light houses and factories. The marvel of access to light seemed to override its unpleasant smells. The houses of the upper classes were lit by odourless, smokeless candles and lamps fuelled with higher quality sperm whale oil. Lighting allowed exploited factory workers to continue working into the night. Whale oil was used in textiles and paints. Sperm oil’s properties made it an excellent lubricant, employed to reduce friction across the scores of machines dominating all manner of industry.
At its peak, whaling was big business. It was the fifth biggest industry in the United States, and transformed sleepy port towns into some of the wealthiest hubs in the world.2
An energy transition
Demand for lighting, energy and lubricants grew rapidly as whale pods withered away. Shrinking populations made whaling more difficult, volatile and less profitable. Whale oil was never going to be able to slate human’s thirst for burning things, and alternatives were developed.
The whale oil industry were publicly unconcerned. The Nantucket Inquirer (Nantucket was a huge whaling port) proclaimed:3
“Great noise is made by many of the newspapers and thousands of the traders in the country about lard oil, chemical oil, camphene oil, and a half-dozen other luminous humbugs… But let not our envious and, in view of the lard oil mania we had well nigh said, hog-gish opponents, indulge themselves in any such dreams.”4
Vicious editorials don’t beat economics. Within about five decades, the whaling industry was practically dead. Although the oil industry came with its own plethora of issues, it was in greater supply and greater demand. The entire industry, which at its peak had sustained almost 1,000 whaling ships, was whittled away in a couple of generations.
The International Whaling Commission moratorium on commercial whaling came into place in 1986. Commercial whaling still takes place, primarily in Norway, Iceland and Japan, where whales are hunted for their meat and for “science”.
Some whale populations have started to recover, while others like Blue, Fin and Right whales may never recover. The Blue whale is stagnant at ~2% of its pre-whaling population. The surviving whales will need to contend with their next existential threat — the warming, changing oceans.
Byron Slay
It would be remiss of me to not talk about the Australian whaling industry. Currently Speaking is advertised as being Australian-centric after all! Although Australia is now a public champion of anti-whaling, we have a recent history of whaling, including in the tourist mecca Byron Bay.
Today’s Byron Bay is a bit of a mess. It’s speed running its way into becoming South Surfer’s Paradise as Nepo babies and influencers make their pilgrimage to the glittery carcass of the formerly working class, hippy, and surfing hub.
Before it became a rental and mental health crisis, Byron Bay was a bit of a commercial centre. Originally named Cavvanbah by Arakawl, Minjungbal and Widjabul people, it was renamed Byron Bay in 1894. European settlers initially logged the groves of Australian red cedar before graduating to cattle, dairy and other agriculture. In the 1950s, the town starting whaling.
While Byron Bay is now a fantastic spot for watching whales migrate, the proximity of humpback whales to the shore were temptation enough for the formation of The Byron Bay Whaling Company.
Boats would head out into the bay with explosive harpoons, catching three to four whales on a good day. The fins would be cut off, the carcass pumped full of air and towed back to the Byron Jetty. Once on land, the blubber, skin and meat were quickly separated. By this time, whales weren’t killed for oil used as energy. Instead, the blubber was used to make lubricants, explosives, cosmetics, margarine and more. The whale meat from Byron was frozen and exported. The liquid waste was piped back out into the bay, attracting many large sharks.
The trade slowed and died as humpback whale populations along the east coast of Australia were devastated. Boats had to travel further to catch fewer and smaller whales. In 1962 the Byron Bay whaling company ceased operations.
1,124 humpback whales were caught and killed by the Byron Bay Whaling Company. Before whaling, there were about 200,000 humpback whales in the Southern Hemisphere. By 1962, only 5,000 humpback whales were estimated to live in southern oceans.
The closure of the Whaling Company represented the closure of a large employer in the town. Over time, the major employers in Byron have evolved, from dairy to bananas, coffee, macadamias and now predominantly tourism.
Conclusion
Naturally, it seems primitive to look back to how our ancestors would “turn on the lights” — from lighting fires, oil lamps, whale candles, it’s hard to fully comprehend compared how different this is to our now ubiquitous access to electricity.5 Today, in a similar vein, solar panels, wind turbines and batteries are making the pollution intensive combustion of fossil fuels start to look archaic.
Whaling, in its own horrible way, was important for the growth of industries and economies that reached the ultimate goal of letting people sit at a computers and write energy blog posts.6 Whaling decimated the populations of whales. We didn’t stop because it was horrible, we stopped because we were running out of whales and better alternatives became available.
Oil, coal and gas made more energy cheaply available to more people. Burning them has also polluted our homes and planets to the point where we desperately need to stop, lest we destroy our planet’s ecosystems. Fortunately, cost effective options exist and, on my optimistic days, I think we’ll get there for humanity’s sake. And if not for us, we should do it for the whales - goodness knows we owe them.
Things happen
In a stunning rebuke to this publication’s criticism of using hydrogen in homes, the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group has opened the Hydrogen Home (affectionately referred to as the HyHome) in Melbourne. Replete with “hydrogen compatible” appliances, the Hydrogen Homies have made this stunning demonstration project available for the world to see. No word yet on: is it scalable? how expensive is it? does it reduce emissions? I guess these are only small details…
In a similar vein, the ABC ran a story about the costs of energy going up. In the article, Gas Energy Australia get away with saying they can decarbonise gas on a path that’s “easy and commercially viable.” A paragraph later, they talk about aspirations to be renewable by 2045 - more than 20 years time… The ABC could have challenged some of these statements.
Government investments in energy continue apace. The Federal government has announced its next round of capacity investments will be in NSW.
There is also responsibility on the Australian government to help smooth these changes, unless you’re a Nationals MP content to bury your head in the sand.
A good podcast about lubricant development in New Bedford, Massachusetts from 99% Invisible.
Doesn’t this read like something Gas Energy Australia would say, except in Olde English?
This is very Australian centric. There are populations who don’t have ready access to electricity, and have to rely on things like kerosene lamps for lighting, which come with a host of indoor pollution issues.
Please don’t start one. We love competition, just not competition with us.
Great read Declan, I didn't realise they were whaling in Byron in the 50's. Terrifying thought really.