[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Black Gold (1859)

Nothing has characterized the industrial revolution as much as the ever-increasing consumption of energy. As steam-powered presses brought down the costs of books, magazines, and newspapers, the demand for cheap interior lighting increased dramatically. In the cities, gaslight became available beginning early in the nineteenth century. But the gas-works that transformed coal into gas were expensive to build, and the network of pipes that distributed the gas could operate profitably only in densely populated central cities.

For those beyond the reach of gas, whale oil was the illuminant of choice. But as the demand for whale oil steadily increased in the early nineteenth century, the supply of whales declined rapidly. This, of course, caused the price to soar. In the 1850s when a dollar a day was a good wage, a gallon of whale oil cost $2.50.

Other illuminants were utilized. One was camphene, made from turpentine. It produced a bright light but had a nasty habit of exploding. Another was kerosene, which could be made from coal, but the process was expensive.

The solution to the need for a cheap, abundant illuminant came from an unexpected source, rock oil. Petroleum, which means “rock oil” in Latin, had been known since ancient times from areas where it seeps to the surface naturally. But its chief use had been medicinal.

In 1853 a Dartmouth graduate named George Bissell happened to be visiting his old school and noticed in a laboratory a bottle of rock oil. He knew that it was flammable and suddenly he wondered if it could be turned into a marketable illuminant. He asked Benjamin Silliman, Jr., one of the country’s leading chemists, to investigate the possibilities while he organized a few investors to form a company. Silliman soon reported that rock oil was easily fractionated into various substances, including kerosene. Silliman was sufficiently impressed with the possibilities that he bought 200 shares in Bissell’s company.

But while it was now clear that there was a market for products made from rock oil, there was as yet no good supply. Most rock oil in this country came from northwestern Pennsylvania, where it was skimmed off ponds. Then, in 1856, Bissell had a second bright idea. On a hot summer day he was shading himself under a druggist’s awning when he saw a bottle of medicine made from rock oil that featured on its label a derrick of the sort used to drill for salt. Bissell wondered if one could drill for oil.

Bissell’s company hired a man named Edwin Drake to go to northwestern Pennsylvania and find out. Drake, who seems to have awarded himself the title of colonel by which he is often known, had a great deal of trouble persuading a salt-drilling crew to try to drill for oil, but on August 27, 1859, he struck it at 69 feet. Once a pump was attached to the well, Drake found himself with more oil than he had barrels to store it in.

In 1859 the total American production of petroleum was 2,000 barrels. Ten years later it was 4.2 million barrels. By the turn of the twentieth century American production was 60 million barrels and the United States was the world’s leading exporter of petroleum and its byproducts.

With the development of the gasoline-powered automobile in the last decade of the nineteenth century, the demand for petroleum would soar. Today the American economy consumes 7.6 billion barrels of petroleum a year, 30 times the per capita consumption in 1900, and petroleum is one of the country’s largest and most capital-intensive industries. More, petroleum has become the linchpin of the world economy and thus of international politics. Armies march to defend or acquire its sources.

[Tanada]

All so that the newly literate US population could read after dark when the work of the day was done.

Rather like the cautionary tale that starts "For want of a nail"

[Bas]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'A')ll so that the newly literate US population could read after dark when the work of the day was done.

Rather like the cautionary tale that starts "For want of a nail"

[Tanada]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Bas', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tanada', 'A')ll so that the newly literate US population could read after dark when the work of the day was done.

Rather like the cautionary tale that starts "For want of a nail"

[Bas]

sounds like the butterfly effect, which incidentally is a folly. (a butterfly doesn't cause a hurricane, an enormous area of warm surface water does) Appreciate the story though, and it may well be very true for human endeavor.

[Kingcoal]

Actually the story goes back further, but I guess the Seneca Rock Oil Company was the first incorporated business venture specifically tasked to make money from oil.

In western Pennsylvania, oil was coming up with the salt water from the salt wells. Millions of years ago, a shallow salty sea covered Ohio and parts of western Pennsylvania. Water wells often came up salty as a result. Pittsburg, by that time, had become a center for producing products from the various salts that could be extracted from the salt water. One of those products was common table salt, for example. The petroleum would be floating on top of the water in the tanks and was skimmed off and often discarded to anyone who wanted it. It was most often used as a lubricant for carriage wheels, etc. One chemist in particular began to experiment with it and found that by treating crude with sulfuric acid it would produce a light yellow liquid that would burn with little smoke or odor. He started selling it as a replacement for whale oil for use in oil lamps. Bissell and Drake got their ideas from this new product. The refining process was too expensive to be economically viable though. Only small amounts of lamp oil could be produced using this method.

Around the same time a Canadian chemist came up with the distillation process which is still used today to refine oil. That process made crude oil refining economically viable.