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Blue whale skeleton at New Bedford museum still oozing oil

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201 points geox | 2 comments | 17 Oct 24 23:09 UTC | HN request time: 0.518s | source
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firefoxd ◴[19 Oct 24 15:41 UTC] No.41888432[source]▶
You have to see those whales skeletons in person to understand their sheer size. And if you want to know more than you need to about whales, pick up a copy of Moby Dick. Don't be intimidated by the size. I still can't believe this book was written in the 1800s. Catching a whale was akin to striking oil.
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1. fasa99 ◴[20 Oct 24 22:20 UTC] No.41898969[source]▶
This makes me strike upon an idea seeing as petroleum is leaking from the whale - might whales be used as a renewable oil resource in the same way as renewable lumber? Whale farms and such (not referring to online dating here, but literally a whale farm). The oil of whale might be used for many things such as lighting of lamp or lubrication of machine.
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2. whaleofatw2022 ◴[21 Oct 24 02:03 UTC] No.41900106[source]▶
Whale oil used to be used for the things you mentioned, but you run into a lot of sustainability issues on top the ethical issues. (I mean FFS if the probe did what it did in star trek 4, imagine what they would have sent instead for your scenario.)

Practically speaking, you can't easily just let the whales go out into the open due to the risk of someone else hunting them down vs cost of captivity or having them be 'monitored' in the wild.