“In 1850, the fifth-biggest industry in our country was whaling, and most houses were lit by whale-oil lamps,” he said. “But as whales started to get shy or scarce and the price of whale oil drifted up, this started to elicit competition, particularly from coal-based oil and gas.” By 1859, these competitors had seized five-sixths of the whale-oil lighting market. “This was a real shock to the whalers. They never expected to run out of customers before they ran out of whales. But that’s what happened, and they were soon reduced to begging for subsidies on national-security grounds.”
Elizabeth Kolbert, quoting Amory Lovins in a profile of Lovins in the January 22, 2007, issue of The New Yorker (not currently available online).
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