Whale Oil and Wind

Energy transitions, graceful and otherwise

I was invited to give a talk at the New Bedford Lyceum last weekend, a long-running forum that has hosted among others Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, and Herman Melville. I have no idea how well I did (I’m no Douglass and no Lincoln and no Melville), but I do know that the main beneficiary of the trip was me. That’s because I arrived at the venue—the New Bedford Whaling Museum—a few hours early, and got to study the truly remarkable exhibits.

The museum is both crammed full (not one scrimshaw cane, not ten, but closer to a hundred) and incredibly shipshape, with everything neatly in its place, including a half-size model of a whaling ship (see picture above). Since I’ve been writing recently on the rise of renewable energy, I was fascinated to reflect on the story of how whale oil grew into a huge 19th century energy source—it included the same kind of iterative technological developments (an African-American blacksmith in New Bedford came up with a new kind of swivel harpoon much harder for the whale to shake) and real breakthroughs (imagine even imagining that you could figure out how to build a big firepit for melting blubber into oil in the bottom of a wooden ship).

The most interesting part of the story, however, may have been what happened as the whale oil era expired. In the late 1850s Edwin Drake, drilling in Titusville, PA, struck oil—it started a rush into what was originally called ‘rock oil’ to distinguish it from the more familiar stuff coming from harpooned cetaceans. It was clear quite quickly that simply in terms of volume and price, the new stuff was going to win out. (Apparently the Pennsylvanians sent some early examples of their product up to New Bedford for analysis).

So what did the whaling industry do? Did it pool all its (considerable) resources and try to elect a president who would ban oil drilling on land? Did it get one of its own appointed Secretary of the Interior so he could shut down all hydrocarbon exploration on public lands? Did they persuade the White House to use coercive tariffs to insure a foreign market for their product? Did they print up a lot of government posters showing strong and manly whalemen in an effort to sway public opinion?

Not so much. They appear, for better for worse, to have been capitalists. Which is to say, they took the capital they’d made sending out whaling vessels and used it instead to finance new ventures which took advantage of the novel and plentiful fuel sources now coming online. Whaling obviously continued, but not so much in New Bedford. Indeed, one whole wing of the museum documents the enormous textile mills and glass factories that sustained New Bedford’s prosperity well into the 20th century. (Once you’re done with the Whaling Museum, you can also visit the New Bedford Glass Museum).

This is all especially poignant right now, because New Bedford—fallen on harder times in recent decades—seemed poised to become a crucial port for the development of the new offshore wind industry, bringing the kind of economic stability that communities along the European coast have enjoyed in recent years. But… As the local paper (the wonderfully named New Bedford Light) observed recently

By sight, the offshore wind industry seems to be moving forward on the East Coast. Gargantuan, bright white turbine towers stand tall against New Bedford’s busy waterfront, and poke above I-95 as cars whiz by over the Thames River in New London. But the future of the industry beyond these active projects is uncertain at best under a hostile Trump administration.

Trump’s energy team has shut down one renewable project after another—including an 80 percent complete windfarm off the coast of New England. Work has since resumed under a court order—but who knows for how long? And who would ever invest in this industry given the animus that the administration daily displays? Their effort to derail all clean energy is a gift to the fossil fuel industry. As former fracking exec and current Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright insists, “there is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either.”

Had he been around in the 19th century, Wright would doubtless have been the spokesman for Big Whale. The irony is that the actual whalers gave ground just in time to save many of the species they’d been hunting from extinction. Would that their spiritual heirs in the fossil fuel industry recognized the even greater tragedy stalking the planet at present. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering, the Trump administration is now actively sabotaging our marine reserves. My these are bad people.

In other energy and climate news:

+Hurricane Melissa is stretching the outer boundaries of physics—gorging on record-warm waters in the Caribbean, it surged to become the third category 5 hurricane of the year. The final numbers on its strength won’t be tallied for a while but it may have hit Jamaica with the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded; winds at sea level were approaching 190 miles per hour, while a few hundred further up they apparently were getting near 250 mph. The storm will do incalculable damage to people who have done nothing to boost its power. American Friends of Jamaica has set up a relief fund here. I can’t begin to imagine the terror of living through this storm in flimsy shelter; more reporting to follow in the days ahead. (As usual, the best hurricane coverage is to be found at Yale’s Eye of the Storm)

+Because El Nino subsided this year, global temperatures fell very slightly—but in the last few days we’ve been setting all-time records for these dates in late October. The ever-reliable Zeke Hausfather reports that this late burst of warmth means 2025 will likely tie or beat 2023 to become the second-warmest year ever, and the hottest non-El-Nino year yet. Sigh.

+It would be bad enough if the Trump administration were merely screwing up American climate and energy policy—but as Jennifer Dlhouy and Akshat Rathi report, they’re doing their best to make the rest of the world go along

The world was on the brink of a climate milestone: adopting a global carbon tax for the shipping industry. Countries had spent years crafting the plan, hoping to throttle planet-warming pollution from cargo vessels. They had every reason to think the measure would pass when the International Maritime Organization (IMO) met in mid-October.

Enter Donald Trump. After returning to the White House for a second term, the president and his top officials undertook a monthslong campaign to defeat the initiative. The US threatened tariffs, levies and visa restrictions to get its way. A battery of American diplomats and cabinet secretaries met with various nations to twist arms, according to a senior US State Department official, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly. Nations were also warned of other potential consequences if they backed the tax on shipping emissions, including imposing sanctions on individuals and blocking ships from US ports.

Under that Trump-led pressure—or intimidation, as some describe it—some countries started to waver. Ultimately, a bloc including the US, Saudi Arabia and Iran voted to adjourn the meeting for a year, killing any chance of the charge being adopted anytime soon.

+Amazing new report from the people at Permit Power, showing that if America could simply match Australia and the EU on the price of rooftop solar, 18 million more American homes would put up systems, saving themselves more than a trillion dollars in electricity costs. This is why Sun Day and Third Act are working so hard to get reforms like the SolarApp+ in place around the country, speeding permits and thus dramatically lowering costs.

+Yet more data on the renewables boom in the rest of the world, this time from Dan McCarthy at Canary Media

If you thought the world built a lot of renewables in the past few years, just wait for the next half of this decade.

Between 2025 and 2030, the world is expected to build nearly 4,600 gigawatts — or 4.6 terawatts, if you please — of clean power, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.

That’s nearly double the amount built over the previous five-year period, which was in turn more than double the amount built across the five years before that. Put differently, the growth has essentially been exponential.

Solar is the driving force behind this expansion, which is key to transitioning the world away from planet-warming fossil fuels. It accounts for more than three-quarters of the expected increase in renewables between 2025 and 2030 — the result, IEA says, of not only low equipment costs but also solid permitting rules and a broad social acceptance of the tech.

This solar boom will be almost equally split between utility-scale installations and distributed projects, meaning panels atop roofs or shade structures in parking lots, for example. Just over 2 TW of large-scale projects will be built compared to 1.5 TW of the smaller, distributed stuff, IEA predicts. The latter category is increasingly popular both in countries with rising electricity rates and in places with unreliable grids, like Pakistan, where residents are taking refuge in the affordable and stable nature of the tech.

+It’s not just Pope Leo. In the run up to the climate talks in Belem next month, the Catholic bishops from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean (whose flocks number about 820 million people) have issued a remarkable letter. As the Faith, Reason and Hope newsletter points out,

The bishops’ appeal is remarkable not only for its show of unity but for its clarity: that “the climate crisis is an urgent reality” and “not just a technical problem” but “an existential issue of justice, dignity, and care for our common home.” It urges decision-makers to “fulfil the Paris Agreement” and to “implement NDC’s [Nationally Determined Contributions] commensurate with the urgency of the climate crisis”. To do this, it calls for putting “the common good above profit”, for moving toward an economic system that “prioritizes people’s well-being and ensures conditions for sustainable life on the planet”, and for promoting “climate and nature policies anchored in human rights.”

While we’re on matters of faith, I need to note the passing of Rabbi Arthur Waskow at age 92. A crusader for civil and human rights his entire life, Art was deeply engaged in environmental work. Here, from the Forward, a great account of him at the big People’s Climate March in New York in 2014

+Pete Hegseth’s Department of Manly Lethality is retreating from the climate fight even as it makes life harder for our troops, reports Ames Alexander

For decades, the Pentagon viewed climate change as a national security threat — not for environmental reasons, but because it undermined operations and readiness.

Now the Trump administration is dismantling that approach. Pentagon leaders have cut climate research funding and abandoned adaptation plans. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed global warming concerns as “climate change crap.”

Critics warn that the military is being forced to fly blind — and that the cost could be strategic vulnerability in a world where climate is increasingly shaping conflict.

“I think it puts our troops at risk,” said Erin Sikorsky, director of the Center for Climate and Security. “... We’re going to be less prepared if our troops are deployed somewhere where it’s incredibly hot and their equipment doesn’t work right, or if they themselves can’t physically operate … That’s malpractice, I think.”

+From Grace Murray and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, interviews with 100 indigenous leaders around the world about their experience of climate change—and much else. Very worth a read, and at a propitious moment

Indigenous people alone cannot solve the climate crisis. Responsibility to act, they told us, must lie with those most responsible for causing it. Nardy Velasco Vargas, from the Chiquitano people in Bolivia, said: “It seems that we, as indigenous peoples, are being left with the entire burden of saving the planet.”

However, many saw Cop30 being held on the edge of the Amazon as an opportunity. “This time it’s in the Amazon, in this sacred territory, in the forest that has enormous importance for the world, for Brazil and for Indigenous peoples,” said Maickson Pavulagem. “I believe that if Cop30 learns from the traditional peoples of the Amazon, we will take a very important step toward a climate solution.”

+Interesting new study indicates solar-geoengineering may be technically more difficult that people have been imagining. (Prepare yourself for some fairly dense discussions of nozzle diameter for spraying reflective chemicals or minerals)

+The indefatigable Nina Lakhani reports that excess heat is killing lots of Americans—lots more, in fact, than death certificates would indicate. Here account is somber and painful

All the reports were clinical, yet hard to read emotionally, because what they reveal is devastating. They show lives cut short in ordinary, preventable ways – the air conditioning unit that broke, the immigrant who collapsed after the border crossing, the single mother who never woke up in her car.

Take Brett George Westbrook. Last summer, the 65-year-old’s body was found decomposed in his trailer after friends noticed he had missed his daily walk for four days and called police for a welfare check. Westbrook had high blood pressure and chronic alcoholism, and had been taking cold showers to cool down since his AC broke six months earlier. According to the autopsy report, a few days before the heat killed him, he had told relatives that he had failed to fix the AC himself, and it was too expensive to get repaired.

Amber Marie Goodwin-Arnold was found dead in her car, where she had been living for several weeks with her two children after moving from Illinois. Her children woke up and found their mother, who was 33, unresponsive in the driver’s seat. They went to get help, but it was too late.

Maria Del Carmen Diaz Rojas, a 24-year-old undocumented immigrant who had just made it over the border, was found three days after she fell sick and was abandoned in Phoenix by smugglers. “She was found decomposed at a construction site, lying on her back fully clothed … her body temperature was 144 degrees Fahrenheit. There was no food or water in her belongings and her body was fully exposed to the sun,” the report says.

+The International Union for the Conservation of Nature—largest network of its kind in the world—has come out swinging for an international convention against ecocide. Here’s the good news from the stalwarts at Stop Ecocide International

In a world that often feels like it’s unravelling, here’s some genuinely good news: the legal architecture to protect our planet is being built, brick by brick, across multiple continents.

Last week at the World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) - the body behind the extinction Red List - voted to adopt Motion 061, calling on governments to recognise ecocide as a serious crime. The motion passed with a clear majority among IUCN member states and government agencies, and an overwhelming majority among NGOs and Indigenous Peoples’ organisations.

The vote means IUCN, a globally influential body whose resolutions often shape national and international environmental policy, has formally called for recognition of ecocide as a serious crime under both national and international law.

+Finally, you may not be used to thinking of Tunisia as an automotive powerhouse. But as EVs sweep across the developing world, startup Bako Motors is producing a new vehicle that comes with a battery but is also roofed with solar panels

“The solar cells provide us with more than 50% of our needs,” says Boubaker Siala, founder and CEO of Bako Motors. “For example, the B-Van, for commercial use, you can have free energy for about 50 kilometers (31 miles) per day… 17,000 kilometers (10,563 miles) per year. It’s huge.”

Would you like to see a picture? Yes you would!