Rocky Mountain Institute CEO Amory Lovins: "In 1850, the fifth-biggest industry in our country was whaling, and most of houses were lit by whale-oil lamps. But as whales started to get shy or scarce and the price of whale oil drifted up, this started to elicit competition, particularly from coal-based oil and gas [which, by 1859, had seized five-sixths of the whale-oil-lighting market]. This was a real shock to the whalers. They never expected to run out of customers before they ran out of whales. But that’s what happened, and they were soon reduced to begging for subsidies on national-security grounds. Oil feels al little like this now. We’ve spent over thirty years amassing a very powerful portfolio of new ways to save oil or substitute for oil, but no one had bothered to add it up. And when we did so we found it was enough to salve all the oil we use and more."