Before we had plastic we had wools from various animals, sheep, goats, alpacas, llamas, yaks etc. and cotton, silk, linen, and other plants........
“Before we had plastic we had wools from various animals, sheep, goats, alpacas, llamas, yaks etc. and cotton, silk, linen, and other plants........”
Most people do not realise that the discovery of oil in 1869 in Pennsylvania and its use as better replacement for whale oil in lamps and especially industrial lubrication saved the whales from outright extinction. There is only two ways to lubricate high pressure and temp bearings. Whale oil or petroleum and its synthetic counterparts. Vegetable and animal oils gum up or fail completely. The industrial Revolution was built initially off whale oils the only oils that can be used in steam engines, and factory spindles driven by steam engines.
There is no substitutes for hydrocarbon based lubricants, be that hydrocarbon a whale oil ester or transfat, a natural petroleum linear alkane or a synthetic polyalpha olefin they are what works and only what works. You can’t run a jet turbine using corn oil as it’s lube for sure same for power plant turbines be they steam or gas. Although some gas turbines are now using air foil bearings ironically you need hydrogen gas to lube and cool the huge generators in power plants it’s one of the largest users of pure hydrogen gas that no one thinks about.