During my travels this holiday season I came across a single page from the Daily Mirror, a British tabloid (if that’s the historically correct term), from 19th July 1913. This would have been interesting in itself but this 93 year old sheet of paper had a very interesting story about the construction of Great Britain’s first oil-driven battleship heralding the beginning of the “Oil Age”.

Churchill underlines the military importance of imported oil leading the discussion to the country's potential self sufficiency in oil. Clearly this is decades before off-shore oil discoveries so shale beds are considered along with a recent breakthrough demonstrating how some 20 gallons of oil can be economically produced from a ton of coal.

Of course some things never change, growing world demand was even reported to be forcing up the price of oil in 1913. As it turned out the UK never embarked on economically significant coal to liquids programmes or exploitation of the shale resources.

Full article below the fold.