One hundred and sixty seven years ago, on this day, April 1st, 1857, Bucharest was the first city to be crude…
The contract began to be executed on April 1, 1857, when, by replacing the kidnapped oil with the products supplied by the Rafov refinery, “Bucharest became the first city in the world illuminated entirely with distilled crude oil.” https://www.worldrecordacademy.org/technology/worlds-first-oil-refinery-ploiesti-218277
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 286ppm. As of 2024 it is 425ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was that some city had to be the first to be lit by oil. And there’s lots of oil in that part of the world. So perhaps not surprising.
What we learn was that before pipelines and supertankers it was location, location, location
What happened next: A couple of years later, Drake hit oil in Pennsylvania. It’s also important to remember that Burma oil had been going for quite some time by this stage, in South East Asia.
Ultimately, it would only be the first Oil Shock (1973) that meant oil for generating electricity started taking a dive.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.
Also on this day:
April 1, 1979 – JASONs have their two cents on the greenhouse effect
April 1, 2001 – John Howard sucks up to George Bush on climate wrecking