the.com/chemical manufacturing
turning cheap molecules into expensive ones, at a scale that would alarm your chemistry teacher.
means the industry that converts raw materials like oil, gas, salt, and air into the compounds everything else is made from.
from grew out of 19th-century dye and soap works, then exploded with the Haber-Bosch process in 1913, which pulled nitrogen from thin air to make fertilizer and, unfortunately, explosives.
ammonia trickone process feeds roughly half of humanity's food
biggest hidden industryalmost nothing you own skipped this step
crackers everywheresteam crackers split oil into ethylene, plastic's building block
reaction to profitmargins often come from selling the same molecule five ways