A brief history of fossil energy

The discovery of oil: a resource that illuminated the past but obscures the future

When we think of oil, we immediately associate it with all its modern applications: in cars, planes and ships, but also in heating, packaging, materials of all kinds and most of the clothing and accessories we use every day. It is the fuel that met our grandparents’ and parents’ demand for energy and is still present in our daily lives today. Even you, who are staunch environmentalists like me, are reading this article about a device built with petroleum derivatives. And, if you have printed this page and are reading it on a sheet of paper, well, guess what energy source it was produced from and what the ink covering it is made of?

But the story of oil, one of the most exploited and contested resources of our time, begins long before it became the driving force behind global industry. Its discovery changed the course of history, bringing with it a series of unexpected events, from climate change to the rescue of some whale species doomed to extinction. But more on that later.

The first stains

Archaeologists have discovered the first traces (perhaps we should say the first stains) of oil in artefacts from ancient civilisations. Already the Assyrians and Babylonians knew and used bitumen – an easily obtainable fraction of oil – to waterproof boats and build walls. Not exactly an engine of industrial progress, but a clear indication that mankind had glimpsed the potential of this black, viscous and smelly substance.

The next step was taken by the Chinese who, around three centuries before the Common Era, began digging in the ground and collecting the oil that surfaced, and it was only between 1850 and 1860 that people began to talk seriously about oil as a commercial resource.

The oil revolution: welcome to modern history

But oil did not originate as a fuel for combustion engines. Initially, oil was used for much more practical, everyday purposes. During the 19th century, for example, oil was used as a lubricant, and – not to be outdone – also forlighting. In fact, before oil became a motor fuel, it was used to power oil lamps. This is where an interesting and somewhat bizarre episode from history comes in: until the 19th century, cities were lit with whale oil.

Whale oil: pre-petroleum lighting

Vegetable oil – mainly olive oil – which had lit the homes of the rich for a couple of millennia, was too expensive to be used in lighting the streets of entire cities. Sowhale oil was preferred. This was mainly extracted from the fat reserves of mysticetes (the whales with baleen) and is composed exclusively of triglycerides, whereas that of odontocetes (the toothed whales) contains many waxy esters that make them less fluid. Balenids, better known as right whales, were considered ideal hunting targets: they are slow, docile and stay afloat when killed. All these cetaceans were cut up and loaded onto whaling ships, where the fatty parts were boiled to separate the oil; and guess what fuel was used to heat those huge pots. Then, the carcass and what remained were simply dumped into the sea. In those years, well described in Melville’s novel Moby Dick, our marine mammal cousins were hunted to near extinction.

And so, in the second half of the 19th century, the discovery of oil and its rapid commercial penetration turned out to be a real salvation for whales, who, thanks to the arrival of fossil oil in lamps, finally managed to stay … afloat.

The cetacean hunting industry, which had thrived for centuries, began to decline as oil became a cheaper and more accessible alternative. The new fuel proves to be much more efficient than whale oil, and its use quickly expands: the fossil source quickly replaces the previous, renewable but certainly not animal-friendly energy source.

The industrial boom: the rise of oil as the engine of the global economy

In 1859, American Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well in the town of Titusville, Pennsylvania. The drilling reached the ‘rock floor’ from which oil began to flow, marking the beginning of the ‘Oil Rush’ and paving the way for modern industry.

With the discovery of oil fields in Pennsylvania, petroleum began to gain popularity, but the real boom came with the introduction of the internal combustion engine at the end of the 19th century. Not only were whale oil lamps replaced by oil-powered lamps, but oil became the main energy resource for transport, powering the first automobile engines. In 1908, the Ford Model T, the best-selling car of all time, entered the market. Ford succeeded in producing its cars at an unprecedented price thanks to the invention of the assembly line. Each worker no longer had to build an entire car but obsessively repeat just one particular gesture on every car that a conveyor belt brought before his eyes. This process did not require skilled workers because each worker only had to know and obsessively repeat a small fragment of the entire production process, and this made everything enormously faster by lowering production costs.

From then on, oil became the main engine of the global economy, triggering a process that continues to this day. Fossil fuels have powered everything from transport, to power plants, to industry, and for decades oil has been the centre of our economy.

The oil boom: black gold changing the world

The ‘Oil Rush’ that started with Drake’s first drilling is comparable to the previous Gold Rush: a real fever that drove the United States – and then other countries – to invest enormously in oil exploration and extraction. After the first deposit under Titusville, other reserves were discovered and exploited on all continents. Technological research goes hand in hand with field research, and new inventions improve the capacity for exploration, extraction, refining and distribution.

Oil became the central resource for the industrial revolution; while at first it was mainly used for lighting, within a few years it became the lifeblood for the birth of new industries, giving rise to a sector that would develop exponentially. The new source became part of almost every human activity, supplanting coal as the fuel for steam engines that until then satisfied every need for mechanical energy, from trains to factories. What at first was only a little-regarded resource quickly became one of the most important raw materials thanks to the high density of available energy concentrated in its molecules, combined with the fact that – being a liquid – it could be handled much more efficiently than coal: with pumps and pipes instead of shovels and… elbow grease.

At the end of the 19th century, cars powered by internal combustion engines, and fuelled precisely by refined petroleum, rapidly gained popularity. Cars finally became accessible to the masses, and the roads began to fill with motor vehicles; to the point of gridlock.

Oil today: resource or curse?

This brings us to the present day, where oil has become not only a global economic driver, but also a major environmental concern. If this source enabled the birth of the modern world, today its extraction, use and consequent impacts on the climate represent a major challenge for mankind. Air pollution, global warming and economic dependence on a resource that is bound to run out are problems that affect us, all of us together.

In 2025, global oil production continued to grow, with approximately 103.8 million barrels per day extracted worldwide. Despite the increasing focus on renewable energy sources, oil remains a dominant resource, with China, the US and India among the largest consumers. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), global demand for oil will not fall dramatically in the coming years, fuelled mainly by growth in developing economies.

The influence of oil on global geopolitics is equally strong, with countries such as Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United States playing a crucial role in the dynamics of production and consumption, influencing global oil prices.

The future of oil: new challenges and opportunities

Although oil has driven the global economy for more than a century, the future of its industry is far from secure. As popular awareness of the risks posed by climate change increases and the energy transition progresses, oil could see a decrease in demand in the coming decades. But oil will not disappear in the short term: many economic sectors, from chemicals to plastics, still depend on this resource.

In this light, the history of oil and its applications also becomes a warning. The transition from whale oil to petroleum is only a small part of a change that has affected the whole of society, and which today calls us to make more conscious choices. If oil has given rise to a prosperous industry, now is the time to look to the future and design solutions that can ensure a more sustainable world.

Renewables, such as solar and wind power, are crucial and will become increasingly decisive in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, but only with a sustainable management of available energy resources and an organised replacement of fossil fuels – which produce more carbon footprint – with sustainable sources, can we hope to build a greener world that is less dependent on oil and its derivatives.

In conclusion, the oil industry, as the engine that has fuelled our development for more than a century, has paved the way for many innovations, but now it is time to review our choices. The whales can now breathe a sigh of relief… while the climate challenges call us to a new energy revolution.