The same man who got rich off of petroleum was doing just fine with whale oil. (greedydwarf.blogspot.ru)
They used to use whale oil until they realized they were killing the whales. (dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com)
Now we know because of this capacity to look at ourselves with new eyes, but it couldn't happen had we been powering our civilization on whale oil or its predecessors. (dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com)