![]() ![]() There is no question now that humanity must leave the petrochemical age behind for the sunny uplands of carbon net-zero energy production. Today, we live in a world dominated by both the progress enabled by this revolution and the increasingly deadly consequences of it. By 1884, more than 10,000 miles of pipeline crisscrossed the United States and by 1907, it was said that oil pipelines had “a girdle around the world, twice over”. ![]() ![]() The first long-distance pipeline (110 miles) was built in Pennsylvania in 1879. ![]() For the first time in history, broad swathes of humanity had true energy abundance as the price per barrel crashed from $10/barrel to $0.10/barrel over the same period, making lighting and heating oil affordable to most Americans.Įnergy abundance spread to every corner of the globe over the subsequent decades as innovation and investments in infrastructure distributed what was considered a “miracle liquid” to cities and farms the world over. Growth went exponential as money, people and innovation flooded the new market production grew to 450,000 barrels by 1860 and onwards to 3 million barrels by 1862. In 1858 ‘Colonel’ Edwin Drake became the first American to strike oil in the state of Pennsylvania, kicking off the most significant energy revolution in history and the start of the petrochemical age. ![]()
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