Energy · 1846

Kerosene

A cheap, clean-burning lamp fuel distilled from coal and then petroleum.

Abraham Gesner distilled kerosene from coal in 1846, and Ignacy Lukasiewicz made it from crude oil and designed a lamp in 1853. Demand for kerosene lighting, not engines, created the petroleum industry.

See it in the living tree Wikipedia

Arcs above join it to what it stood on, arcs below to what it led to. The bar places this stretch on the tree's whole timeline.

What it built on 3

What it led to 1

Oil refinery 1856

Related measurements

The dashed line marks when it first worked.

Price of light in the UK Latest: 2.15 £ (2000) per million lumen-hours (2023) Source: Our World in Data

Efficacy of selected lighting devices Latest: 303 lumens per watt (2014) Source: Nordhaus 1996, Do Real-Output and Real-Wage Measures Capture Reality? The History of Lighting Suggests Not, Table 1.3; Semiconductor Today, 26 Mar 2014: Cree breaks 300 lm/W

Crude oil price since 1861 Latest: 435 current US$ per m3 (2025) Source: Our World in Data