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201 points geox | 1 comments | 17 Oct 24 23:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.205s | source

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ricardo81 ◴[19 Oct 24 15:56 UTC] No.41888537[source]▶

I recall hearing how the demand for whale oil fell off a cliff not long after electricity was scaled for lighting.

Interesting in that now we're looking to move away from hydrocarbons which ultimately was how much of the electricity has been produced.

1. madaxe_again ◴[19 Oct 24 20:41 UTC] No.41890630[source]▶

It wasn’t quite immediate - margarine was invented to fill the gap on the demand side, and kept the industry going for quite a few decades.

What killed off whaling was that they killed off the whales - it simply wasn’t economically viable to send ships out any more.

Blue whale skeleton at New Bedford museum still oozing oil