Unfortunately, whale oil was not nearly as widely used as oil currently is. It was used in a fairly small sector of the economy, and was not a necessary precondition for a replacement energy source. By this I mean that kerosene was developed and implemented as a replacement source of energy without having to use whale oil to do it. Petroleum power will be necessary to create and implement any alternative energy, and current oil supplies may not be enough to do it in time.
Also, whale oil increased in price by something like 500% before kerosene was implemented as a substitute. Could our society handle a similar rise in the price of oil?
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Unfortunately, whale oil was not nearly as widely used as oil currently is. It was used in a fairly small sector of the economy, and was not a necessary precondition for a replacement energy source. By this I mean that kerosene was developed and implemented as a replacement source of energy without having to use whale oil to do it. Petroleum power will be necessary to create and implement any alternative energy, and current oil supplies may not be enough to do it in time. Also, whale oil increased in price by something like 500% before kerosene was implemented as a substitute. Could our society handle a similar rise in the price of oil?