I always love ‘before peak oil’ stories that illustrate what a great benefit petroleum based energy has been to our society.
Here’s one from April-June 2006 Edition of Australian Geographic magazine. It was accompanied by a beautiful picture of a working team of eight Clydesdales.
[quote][b]The Teamsters[/b] near Coleambally NSW 1958
Teamsters Tom Demamiel and George Whittaker had been using stout-hearted draught horses to dig channels across the NSW Riverina for more than 30 years when Jeff photographed them building the Coleambally Canal. The canal is part of the Murrumbidgee lrrigation Area the great scheme that opened up the dry flat frontier of south-western NSW for agriculture and settle- ment in the period following WW1. Tom and George ran one of the last horse-powered outfits on the scheme. They used two eight-horse teams of Clydesdales selected each day from their stable of 40; one team ploughed the other scooped out the clay to create the l m deep by 5 m wide irrigation trenches. Their teams could remove around 50 cubic metres of earth in a day – about the same amount excavated for today’s average suburban swimming pool. The horses’ broad hooves would compact the soil and create a solid water-resistant surface a distinct advantage over motorised excavators and one Tom believed would guarantee his teams’ survival. He was wrong. Within a couple of years the gentle sound of teamster urging on mighty Clydesdales was irrevocably drowned out by the rumbling sputter of the diesel engine. [/quote]
…there’s nothing quite like the energy density of oil!