The History of Oil1859 to 1950

Norman W. GarrickLecture 5.2

Sustainable Transportation

Based mostly on

Kunstler, The Long Emergency, 2005, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, pg. 73-87(Chapter 2: Modernity and the Fossil Fuels Dilemma)

Ancient Use of OilMuch of the world’s oil is found at the level of the ‘oil window’

but some has also seeped to the surface

Examples of surface oil includeTrinidad Lake Asphalt

La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles

Surface and shallow oil are relatively rare but were used in antiquity forCaulking boats Paving streets

Flaming weaponsMedical treatment

Large scale commercial use of oil only started once the first oil well was drilled in the 1850s

1859The Start of the Oil Industry

The oil industry started with the drilling of the first ever oil well in the world in NW Pennsylvania in 1859

Drake’s effort to drill for oil was backed by financial sponsors in New Haven, Connecticut

In 1859, the industrial revolution was well on the way, powered by wood, water and coal so the ‘Age of Fossil Fuel’ pre-dated the commercial exploitation of oil

In fact, Drake and his backers were not necessarily looking for a machine fuelrather they were looking for a substitute for whale oil to light America’s towns and cities

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Whale Oil Lamp

The End of Sperm Whale Oil

In 1859, Sperm Whale Oil was the highest quality illuminant known but it was very expensive and supplies were dwindling

Gaslight was used to light the streets but was not good for homes - noisy, hot, dangerous and inconvenient since it was fixed to the wall

In the 1850s, kerosene emerged as an attractive substitute to whale oil it was similar to whale oil in brightness

and did not need pipes for delivery and was not noisy when burning

However, the kerosene used then was from rock oil The Drake experiment was in search of another source of kerosene

During the American Civil War, the kerosene lamp was new technology

The End of Sperm Whale Oil

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The First Oil Bust

Other big use of oil was to replace lard as lubricant in the burgeoning factories of the time

However, this did not save the oil industry from quickly encountering the first of many busts in a continuous cycle of bust and boon

Since the system was not geared up to distribute all the oil produced this led to a glut of oil

and resulted in the first bust for the nascent industry

However, by 1890 may of the great Oil companies had already been formed includingStandard Oil (US)

Royal Dutch (Netherlands)Shell (UK)

1900 to 1920

By 1900, the fields of the east had been played out and extraction moved to Ohio and Indiana and then Texas and Oklahoma

In 1911, Standard Oil was broken up by the government into multiple companies due to anti-trust concerns

Also, this was around the time that electrification had replaced kerosene in most cities

However, at around the same time Ford’s assembly lines for the Model T were just coming into production and gasoline replaced kerosene and lubricants as the major use for oil

The Great Wars and Oil

The changes in WWI illustrate the rate at which the switch to oil power occurred

In 1914, the British started the war with 15 motorcycles and 827 motorcars

By war’s end in 1918, they had 34,000 motorcycles, 23,000 motorcars and 56,000 trucks

According to Kunstler, oil and the control of oil played a role in the outcome of both WWI and WWII

In WWI, Germany suffered from being oil poor Britain bought a control of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company

that shipped oil from Iran through the Suez Canal to supply British oil powered warships

He states that WWII was fought with and for oil

The war was partly an effort by Germany and Japan to extend control to oil producing regions – they lost the war because they failed to do so

The Roaring 20s and the Birth of Modernism

Between 1880 and 1930 American cities grow to a scale never seen before

According to Kunstler, the intelligentsia, especially in architecture and urbanism,assumed that human life had crossed an evolutionary threshold

that rendered human history and tradition obsolete

Modernism in architecture and urban planning come out of this period It has left a huge impact on our cities and how we live, work and travel in them

Kunstler goes further in saying that the Modernist Machine Ethos found an analog in FascismNazism

Soviet Communism

Norman W. Garrick

A Bold, Shiny New World

”Abundant sunshine, fresh air, fine green parkways would blend together seamlessly with dazzling skyscrapers and seven-lane highways”

Futurama, 1939 New York World’s Fair

True American Exceptionalism

American exceptionalism is an ugly term in its common usage but Kunstler points out one way in which America was different from other industrialized countries

– We had oil, they did not

Of the countries that started down the road to industrialization in the 19th centuryAmerica had by far the most oil

America was the first to exploit oil in commercial quantities and use it fullyThe auto industry started in America

Plastics and synthetics fibers also started here

The USA has always been the world’s leading consumer of oil

Hints of Trouble

During the Great Depression in America, oil was so plentiful and demand was so low

that the price of oil fell to 10 cents per barrel

However, oil discovery in America also peaked in 1930s –a hint of trouble to come that few, if any, noticed

The 1940s and 1950s

After WWII America emerged with its manufacturing and oil infrastructure intact

While Europe and industrialized Asia were devastated

Although oil discovery was decreasing, production continued to rise until 1970

In the 1950s, America had much more oil than it could use

This was the timeframe that cemented Americas dependency on oil with two major, interrelated policy decisions

Continued suburbanizationThe building of the freeway system

The Decision to Suburbanize America

According to Kunstler, the suburbanization of America started in the 1920s but was interrupted by the Depression, and later, WWII

Kunstler felt that the desire to suburbanize American cities was totally understandable given how overcrowded and how artless American cities were

“Americans were sick of them and saw no way to improve them”

In addition, the ethos of country life was idealized in American (Anglo?) culture

People equated suburbia with country living in their minds

“That suburbia turned out to be a disappointing cartoon of country living rather than the real thing

was a tragic unanticipated consequence”

The Biggest Public Works Project in HistoryThe American Freeway System

The decision to construct the freeway system was made in 1955

Kunstler attributes the decision to the fact that the American public was entranced with cars and saw the highways as a reward for winning the war

The disinvestment in American cities and the debasement of the countryside

was an unforeseen consequence of this decision (although a number of voices did predict what would happen – including Lewis Mumford)

These two decisions, the suburbanization of the cities and the construction of the freeways,

locked us into our current dependency on oil

Why Did Europe Not Follow This Same Path?

After WWII, America had oil Europe did not have a ready supply

In fact, it could be argued that Germany lost two wars trying to get a secure source of oil

Thus, Kunstler argues that Europeans have always been much less complacent about oilFor this reason, after the war

Europeans maintained compact living arrangementsAnd taxed oil as a luxury

Americans made different decisionsKunstler says that we were overconfident and complacent about the future