Whale Oil

factual friday

Whales the world over breathed a sigh of relief when whale oil was replaced by camphene and then kerosene as the main fuel used to light homes in the late 19th century.

In the process of making this new lamp fuel, a waste product was pumped into rivers which was so flammable that sometimes the rivers caught fire.

It was when the car was invented, that it was realised that this waste product, ‘petrol’, could actually be put to use!

130 years later, we need to make it obsolete again.