A hibridização tecnológica do Petróleo

Abstract

This paper draws on hybridizationcase of the oil–steam hybrid in which fuel oil was adapted to feed steam engines originally devised to be coal-fuelled. The analysis highlights some of the problems of hybridization process’ namely the investment in a new network infrastructure; the consolidation of a technology with dominant design; the operational asymmetry between high specific energy and high specific power. The inquiry into the oil–steam combine embraces its diffusion across leading producing nations such as Russia and the United States, the diffusion in industrial and transport activities in South America, and the diffusion throughout European navies. It is shown that this process of hybridization entailed the transformation of oil into a geostrategic good and the triggering of an international race for the seizure of natural resources.

(Nuno Luís Madureira, "Oil in the age of steam", Journal of Global History, 5, no. 01 (2010): 75-94).