Located 30 miles off the coast of Massachusetts, the history of Nantucket is the story of how quickly the world can change through technological innovation. It is a symbol of the power of innovation in the face of dominant market leaders.
150 years ago, the king of fuels was a different kind of oil: whale oil. In the 1800s, Nantucket Island was the Saudi Arabia of whale oil production - for 100 years as many as 150 whaling ships were based out of Nantucket, making it far and away the largest energy port in the world. When talk of finding 'alternative fuels' worried Nantucketers, the local newspaper calmed its readers saying; "great noise is made by many of the newspapers and thousands of the traders in the country about Lard oil, Chemical Oil, Camphene Oil, and a half dozen other luminous humbugs". Have no fear, the editors advised; "let not our envious opponents indulge themselves in any such dreams." Despite those pronouncements however, radical change did come with the unexpected discovery by a group of entrepreneurs and a university professor that a thick and plentiful fluid which lay just below the surface of the ground could be converted into a useable fuel.
The world is changing...
...and entrepreneurs and innovators are the reason why.
