What did the socially conscious use to light their houses before candles? Electricity.
They killed a lot of whales to light lamps before electricity, which I would not be for, but there were other sources of oil before someone drilled a hole in pennsylvannia that one time, they just weren’t abundant.
I have no problem with electricity itself, of course. You just can’t power the world on it. Not now, and not even 50 years from now.