The History of Whaling Shows Energy Transitions Are Possible

I was invited to give a talk at the New Bedford Lyceum last weekend, a long-running forum that has hosted among others Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Herman Melville. I have no idea how well I did (I’m no Douglass and no Lincoln and no Melville), but I do know that the main beneficiary of the trip was me. That’s because I arrived at the venue—the New Bedford Whaling Museum—a few hours early, and got to study the truly remarkable exhibits.

The museum is both crammed full (not one scrimshaw cane, not 10, but closer to 100) and incredibly shipshape, with everything neatly in its place, including a half-size model of a whaling ship (see picture above). Since I’ve been writing recently on the rise of renewable energy, I was fascinated to reflect on the story of how whale oil grew into a huge 19th century energy source—it included the same kind of iterative technological developments (an African-American blacksmith in New Bedford came up with a new kind of swivel harpoon much harder for the whale to shake) and real breakthroughs (imagine even imagining that you could figure out how to build a big firepit for melting blubber into oil in the bottom of a wooden ship).

The most interesting part of the story, however, may have been what happened as the whale oil era expired. In the late 1850s Edwin Drake, drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania, struck oil—it started a rush into what was originally called "rock oil" to distinguish it from the more familiar stuff coming from harpooned cetaceans. It was clear quite quickly that simply in terms of volume and price, the new stuff was going to win out. (Apparently the Pennsylvanians sent some early examples of their product up to New Bedford for analysis).

So what did the whaling industry do? Did it pool all its (considerable) resources and try to elect a president who would ban oil drilling on land? Did it get one of its own appointed secretary of the interior so he could shut down all hydrocarbon exploration on public lands? Did they persuade the White House to use coercive tariffs to insure a foreign market for their product? Did they print up a lot of government posters showing strong and manly whalemen in an effort to sway public opinion?

Had he been around in the 19th century, Wright would doubtless have been the spokesman for Big Whale.

Not so much. They appear, for better for worse, to have been capitalists. Which is to say, they took the capital they’d made sending out whaling vessels and used it instead to finance new ventures which took advantage of the novel and plentiful fuel sources now coming online. Whaling obviously continued, but not so much in New Bedford. Indeed, one whole wing of the museum documents the enormous textile mills and glass factories that sustained New Bedford’s prosperity well into the 20th century. (Once you’re done with the Whaling Museum, you can also visit the New Bedford Glass Museum).

This is all especially poignant right now, because New Bedford—fallen on harder times in recent decades—seemed poised to become a crucial port for the development of the new offshore wind industry, bringing the kind of economic stability that communities along the European coast have enjoyed in recent years. But… As the local paper (the wonderfully named New Bedford Light) observed recently:

By sight, the offshore wind industry seems to be moving forward on the East Coast. Gargantuan, bright white turbine towers stand tall against New Bedford’s busy waterfront, and poke above I-95 as cars whiz by over the Thames River in New London. But the future of the industry beyond these active projects is uncertain at best under a hostile Trump administration.

Trump’s energy team has shut down one renewable project after another—including an 80% complete windfarm off the coast of New England. Work has since resumed under a court order—but who knows for how long? And who would ever invest in this industry given the animus that the administration daily displays? Their effort to derail all clean energy is a gift to the fossil fuel industry. As former fracking exec and current Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright insists, “There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”

Had he been around in the 19th century, Wright would doubtless have been the spokesman for Big Whale. The irony is that the actual whalers gave ground just in time to save many of the species they’d been hunting from extinction. Would that their spiritual heirs in the fossil fuel industry recognized the even greater tragedy stalking the planet at present. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, the Trump administration is now actively sabotaging our marine reserves. My these are bad people.