Our nation and the world stand at a crossroads when it comes to the energy sources that will feed and fuel our future. Oil, the energy source we have relied on for the past century, is running out; and, with shrinking supplies, comes higher prices.

Meanwhile, the debate rages on where or what the next energy source or sources should be. What is interesting is that we have been here before. Just a little more than a century ago, we were in the exact same situation for the exact same reason. What did we do then? What can we learn from history?

At the beginning of the 19th century, America and much of the world had a cheap, abundant, energy supply whose byproducts included industrial, clothing and food products. This source produced an oil that literally lit most of the lamps in the world. It was used in a variety of industrial and consumer products including paint, varnish, textiles, leather, clothing, and food. The energy source was the whale.

As the industrial revolution swept through the 1800s, the whale provided the raw materials for a bewildering number of everyday products including women’s corsets, perfumes, hair brushes and red fabric die (which was made from whale excrement). As University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and New York Times journalist Stephen J. Dubner record in their book Super Freakonomics, when it came to producing things from the whale, the United States was the Saudi Arabia of the world.

Out of a worldwide fleet of 900 whaling ships, 735 were American. Between 1835 and 1872, more than 300,000 whales were harvested. During this time the average annual profit from whaling totaled $10 million, equivalent to $200 million today. It was the fifth largest U.S. industry employing 70,000 people.

Then, suddenly yet quite inevitably, the supply of whales was gone. Many species became extinct, and other species nearly so. A whaling ship that had once taken a year to fill its hold with whale oil, now took four years.

As supplies declined, prices of whale oil skyrocketed. An industry, that at one time seemed too big to fail, was failing fast. The outlook for continued growth of the U.S. economy was not good. The United States and much of the world faced an oil and energy crisis.

Then Edwin L. Drake used a steam-powered drill to power through 70 feet of rock and struck oil in Titusville, Penn. It was quickly discovered that this energy source was cheap, plentiful and easy to get. It could be used to lubricate, heat homes, light lamps, power automobiles and produce a variety of consumer goods.

The new oil industry also provided lots of jobs for those unemployed whalers. In the beginning, the U.S. government poured resources in to research, funded oil refineries and helped build pipelines to move the oil around the country.

America forgot the lesson of the whale as it became dependent on oil: a plentiful, yet finite, energy source.

As we begin the 21st century, we again face a dwindling energy supply and rising prices both of which threaten the sustainability of the U.S. economy. Again the search is on for a replacement for a cheap and easy energy source.

While it is possible there may yet be some discovery that provides us that simple answer, at this point it looks like the future will belong to several different energy sources. What is most interesting is that many of these are renewable and, thus, sustainable. The most advanced and economically viable is ethanol. Ethanol has the ability to fuel the largest sector of our energy demand: transportation.

Unlike the whale and the oil well, ethanol has the ability to reproduce its supply each year; and, with improved production and new crops, increase the amount produced while not increasing the amount of land needed to produce it.

I am sure the companies who owned the big whaling ships fought against the development of the oil industry, just as the oil industry is fighting against the ethanol industry today. The lesson we need to learn from history, however, is that the solution is not to rely on a single finite source of energy but rather to develop a variety of renewable sources of energy.

Only by taking this approach can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Oil, like whales, is an endangered species.

It is time for us to begin to transform our economy to a renewable, bio-based, energy source to fuel and feed our future.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.