Every time I hear some politician, influencer, or green-tinged academic lecture me about “transitioning away” from oil and coal, I look around my house and wonder what planet they’re living on.
Not this one, clearly.
Because on this planet - the one with rain, dust, deadlines, tractors, hospitals, shipping lanes, and real people who need real electricity - oil and coal didn’t just keep the lights on.
They built the modern world from the ground up.
These weren’t “dirty fuels.”
They were civilisation’s skeleton and bloodstream.
Oil gave us mobility, global trade, aviation, pharmaceuticals, plastics, cheap goods, emergency services ... basically everything that lets the 21st century exist.
Coal forged the steel that holds up our bridges and skylines, powered the factories that created prosperity, and still keeps grids alive when the sun hides and the wind sulks.
And now, suddenly, the fuels that dragged humanity out of the dark ages are immoral, because a handful of activists discovered hashtags and politicians discovered votes.
Well, pull up a chair and grab a beer.
Let’s have a proper yarn about what oil and coal actually did - and what happens when a civilisation forgets the very things that built it.
The twin titans of modernity have been the beating heart of the global economy - driving industrial growth, transportation, and technological leaps that lifted billions out of poverty and built the world we know.
And now they’re demonised for “environmental impact.”
Apparently the same civilisation that needs smartphones, global shipping, air travel, central heating, manufactured goods, medicine, and electricity suddenly decided its own foundations are wrong?.
Let’s cut the ideological nonsense: we swapped whale oil for wind turbines, and whales are still getting hammered - not by harpoons, but by offshore wind farms, sonar blasting half the seabed senseless, and oceans full of plastic garbage from the same people who preach “sustainability.”
The real problem isn’t carbon.
It’s politics and virtue-signalling trumping reality and common sense.
Oil fuels your car, your plane, your container ship. Coal keeps the lights on and the steel mills roaring. That’s not opinion. That’s engineering.
(Except, of course, when Houthi drones turn the Red Sea into a no-go zone and your Amazon parcel is suddenly “delayed indefinitely.” Nothing says “sustainable supply chain” like rerouting 12,000 km around Africa burning extra bunker fuel while activists congratulate themselves on X.)
Oil: The Lifeblood of Mobility
Oil didn’t just power transport - it created the idea of modern mobility. Before the internal combustion engine, your transport choices were horses, sails, or a steam locomotive that needed a drink every 100 km. Then along came Daimler and Benz in the 1880s, bolted a petrol engine onto a carriage, and suddenly personal freedom had a throttle.
The Automotive Explosion
Henry Ford didn’t invent the car - he simply made it something a schoolteacher could afford.
When the 1908 Model T rolled out at $850, it wasn’t just a car. It was a social revolution.
By 1920, eight million vehicles rattled across America.
Petrol stations sprouted faster than fast-food chains would a century later.
Oil fields in Texas (Spindletop, 1901) and California erupted - literally - as demand didn’t just grow; it detonated.
Aviation: From Biplanes to 747s
World War I turned aviation from circus act to strategic weapon. The Sopwith Camel and Fokker Triplane ran on high-octane gasoline. Post-war, Charles Lindbergh crossed the Atlantic in 1927 on a tank of petrol. Jet engines arrived in the 1940s - still burning refined crude. Today, 99.9% of global aviation runs on kerosene-derived jet fuel. No batteries. No hydrogen. Just oil.
Shipping: The Diesel Revolution
Coal powered the great steamships of the 19th century, but bunkering coal took hours and crews of stokers. Diesel changed everything. Rudolf Diesel’s 1897 engine offered triple the efficiency and refuelled in ports with a hose. By the 1920s, oil tankers were carrying oil to carry oil. Today, 90% of global trade by volume moves on diesel ships. Your phone, your bananas, your medicines, your Christmas toys - none of them arrive without bunker fuel.
Geopolitics: The Black Gold Curse
Oil reshaped the 20th century more than ideology ever did.
The Middle East went from desert backwater to centre stage. Saudi Arabia’s Ghawar field , discovered in 1948. still pumps 5 million barrels a day like it’s nothing.
OPEC (1960) changed the rules: producers set the price, not consumers.
The 1973 oil embargo kneecapped the West.
And the wars that followed - Iraq, Kuwait, Libya - weren’t fought for poetry.
Oil isn’t just energy. It’s leverage.Turn off the tap, and an economy suffocates.
Coal: The Forge of Civilisation
While oil moves the world, coal built it. The Industrial Revolution wasn’t powered by dreams - it was powered by black rock dug from British mines.
But Australia’s high-grade black coal burned through modern scrubbers produces less emissions per kWh than many “green” gas plants.
Yet we keep worshipping windmills that sulk when the breeze drops.
Steam: The First Prime Mover
Factories no longer depended on rivers.
Textile mills hummed 24/7.
Coal mines dug deeper thanks to steam pumps.
Economic output exploded.
-
Coal production:
-
1750 UK: 5 million tonnes
-
1850: 50 million
-
1900: 250 million
That’s civilisation in a graph.
-
And people now think we can unplug all that because someone installed a solar panel in Dusty Gulch.
Steel: The Skeleton of Modernity
Iron was brittle. Steel was king. Henry Bessemer’s 1856 converter used coal-derived coke to burn impurities from iron in 20 minutes. Suddenly, steel was cheap. Railways spanned continents. Skyscrapers pierced clouds. The Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower, the Titanic - all steel, all coal.
Electricity: Coal Lights the Night
Thomas Edison’s 1882 Pearl Street station in New York ran on coal. So did nearly every power plant for the next century. Coal’s genius? Baseload reliability. It doesn’t care about sun or wind. It burns when you flip the switch.
Renewables? Intermittent. Batteries? Expensive and rare-earth intensive. Coal? Dirty, yes - or no. I suppose it depends on the coal you use. Australia has some of the world's cleanest coal and it can burn cleaner with modern technology. But coal is there when the grid needs it.
Further reading
https://patriotrealm.com/index.php/4363-how-kerosene-ignited-the-oil-revolution
https://patriotrealm.com/index.php/4351-what-a-whale-of-a-tale
BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS
