Chemicals and Electricity - A Mix Made in Heaven
In the first edition of this blog, I noted that “the electric sector underpins every other essential industry sector, and it also relies on many of them. I…think of the overlaps like the Olympic rings – all interlinked, with some overlapping more than others.”
For the next several editions, I’ll continue to focus on each critical infrastructure sector in relation to the electric sector because electricity – which began to be deployed as a service close to 150 years ago – has enabled the progress, convenience and abundance that are hallmarks of modern life. Thereafter, I’ll get into the overlapping policy issues in more detail.
In this edition, I’ll discuss the chemical sector and how it interacts with the electric sector. But first, a word from my 10th grade self: “Chemistry is the most boring subject I’ve ever taken.” I am now not as prone to boredom, but while researching this blog, I admittedly flashed back to those long-ago lessons...and shuddered. Ha! However, once I got over the trauma of references to chemical equations and realized – wait for it – the interesting history, I became intrigued.
According to the Oxford dictionary, chemistry is “the branch of science that deals with the identification of the substances of which matter is composed; the investigation of their properties and the ways in which they interact, combine, and change; and the use of these processes to form new substances.” The chemical sector is comprised of the industries that take those concepts and scientifically derived substances to develop products that serve as inputs into a host of end-use consumer goods. From make-up, to clothing, to batteries, to tape, to solvents, to pharmaceuticals…and the list goes on and on.
Since I love definitions (having just used one already!), I would be happy to further define the chemical industry, but, according to Britannica, it almost defies definition. Given this lack of a satisfactory definition, here is the somewhat cheeky way Britannica frames the chemical sector:
Complex of processes, operations, and organizations engaged in the manufacture of chemicals and their derivatives. Although the chemical industry may be described simply as the industry that uses chemistry and manufactures chemicals, this definition is not altogether satisfactory because it leaves open the question of what is a chemical. Definitions adopted for statistical economic purposes vary from country to country. The scope of the chemical industry is in part shaped by custom rather than by logic.
As such, we will follow the custom established by the Department of Homeland Security and back out of the chemical sector and other sectors that overtly require chemicals to operate (pretty much all the other critical infrastructure sectors) and the other sector that produces chemicals to be used in other goods – that would be oil & gas (petrochemicals). We’re left with a chemical industry that converts raw materials (that were mined then transported to such chemical plants) into primary, secondary, and tertiary products – with primary products being the furthest “upstream” from consumers.
Maybe by going back in history for a bit, it will help us wrap our arms around the “illogical” scope of this crucial sector. I’ve gleaned this information from Britannica, Wikipedia and LiveScience. Like with all our modern critical infrastructure sectors, the widespread manufacture and use of chemicals came about with the advent of the industrial revolution, closely aligned with the evolution of thermodynamics, including combustion engines, and electricity. However, the manipulation of matter to create something else that is useful to humans – what I’ll refer to as chemistry until we get into the industrial revolution – traces back to our most ancient beginnings. Prehistoric humans (homo erectus) figured out how to create fire at least a million years ago, maybe longer, with homo sapiens’ use around 300,000 years ago. As mentioned in this newsletter’s seventh edition on mining and electricity, ochre was mined in the area now known as South Africa about 100,000 years ago, and then processed for use in clothing and skin adornment.
While metals were mined as early as 40,000 years ago, active smelting (melting them at high temperatures to enable manipulation) didn’t happen until about 7,000 years ago – right around the time we have seen other critical infrastructure sectors make significant progress. Evidence of this initial metallurgy has been found in modern-day Serbia. Approximately 5,500 years ago, the advent of the Bronze Age saw significant progress in smelting processes, largely driven by the need for weapons, as discussed in my last newsletter on the defense industrial base. Same with the enhancements developed during the Iron Age, beginning about 3,500 years ago. Unlike the tin and copper needed to make bronze, iron ore is found in abundance throughout the globe and was used by all ancient cultures to produce better weapons and develop more precise tools for a host of uses.
Around this time, ancient cultures throughout the world began to characterize different substances – by state (solid, liquid, gas) and property (smell, color, density) – and then to try to identify common inputs into every substance. While there are slight variations on this theme amongst cultures, they all agreed that air, earth, fire and water were primary elements. Some called the space between these inputs as the “aether.” As far back as 380 B.C., Greek philosopher Democritus postulated that small, indestructible particles known as “atomos” comprised all matter. The Indian philosopher Kanada postulated a similar idea around the same time. As noted in the eighth edition of this newsletter, focused on healthcare, ancient healers and doctors formed ideas about the “humors” comprising the body around this time.
An interesting digression occurred when the revered Aristotle rejected the idea of atoms or particles that could not be changed and instead proposed that all substances could be transformed into something else if the right conditions were applied. This theory, combined with mysticism and magical beliefs from around the world, melded into the study of alchemy, whereby these potential transformations were attempted – especially those that would turn stone into gold. Everyone knows about that quest for the “philosopher’s stone” – if not from study, then from Harry Potter.
While the premise of alchemy was incorrect, many of the processes used to try for the ever-elusive transformations turned out to be helpful in the evolution of chemistry. It’s also interesting to me that women played a substantial role in these process developments – likely because of their knowledge of cooking, jewelry-making, glass blowing and other related subjects. Numerous developments occurred in the first few centuries A.D., with Mary the Jewess inventing the bain-marie, a cylinder used to heat food or other materials gently and then keep them warm, and Cleopatra the Alchemist creating the alembic (a type of distillation tool). Pliny the Elder, a pioneer in medicine described in the eighth edition of this newsletter was involved in describing purification methods associated with alchemy.
Various alchemical works by the Greeks and Romans were absorbed by Arabs and Persians during the Middle Ages. One was alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan who in the 800s developed a system to characterize metallic properties, which later became foundational to the study of organic chemistry.
However, by the 1300s, alchemy was widely used as a way to perpetuate fraudulent schemes and heads of state took steps to ban the practice outright. Nonetheless, later renowned scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton still engaged in some elements of alchemy alongside more fruitful (get it?) pursuits. It was during Newton’s lifetime (1642-1726), that chemistry began accelerating and laying the groundwork for the industrial revolution. Anglo-Irish scientist Robert Boyle began to separate chemistry from alchemy in the 1600s and became known for Boyle’s Law which lays out the inversely proportional relationship between the absolute pressure and volume of a gas. While Boyle still believed in alchemy, he differentiated it from the concrete measurements and observations characterizing chemistry.
Things took off from there, with the separation of carbon dioxide in the 1730s, hydrogen in the 1760s and oxygen in the 1770s. In the late 1700s, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier discovered that hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water. He also worked with Claude Louis Berthollet to create a system of categorization of elements called the Methods of Chemical Nomenclature, some of which is still used today. Lavoisier also wrote the first modern chemical textbook. Similar to what happened in medicine around this time, various fields of chemistry began to take off. Of particular note is the work done in 1840 by Germain Hess who proved that the beginning states of products define the energy changes in a chemical process rather than the pathway between the products. Lord Kelvin discovered the concept of absolute zero – whereby all molecular motion ceases at a certain temperature. Dmitri Mendeleev created the periodic table of elements in 1869, identifying the 66 known elements at the time based on their atomic mass.
On a similar timeline as other breakthroughs in critical infrastructure, the late 1800s were a frenzy of discovery in chemistry. Carl von Linde, a German engineer, developed refrigeration techniques using liquified gases that could be commercially deployed on a large scale. He then created a process whereby pure liquid oxygen could be distilled from liquid air. This process came to be used in producing steel, among other applications.
Then came the Curies – Marie and Pierre. In the late 1800s, through their research on radioactivity, they discovered radium, and opened the door to the nuclear age. Marie is the only person ever to have received the Nobel prize for science in two different disciplines – physics and chemistry.
In the 1900s, things moved even more quicky. In the sixth edition of this newsletter, I mentioned the Haber-Bosch process for producing ammonia that was then used for fertilizer. This milestone, achieved by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in 1905, has had an indelible impact on the world, minimizing the threat of food shortages in many areas. American physicist Robert Andrews Millikan confirmed that all electrons have the same charge and mass in 1909 and in 1912 proved Albert Einstein’s hypothesis of the linear relationship between energy and frequency for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics.
The period between 1900 and 1945 was characterized by massive leaps in understanding of quantum mechanics and how to manipulate atomic particles and waves. While this knowledge, underpinned by the work of Einstein, Niels Bohr, Otto Hahn, and Gilbert Lewis, led to the atomic bomb, it also led to nuclear energy. Nuclear comprises 20 percent of U.S. electricity use today.
The interplay between chemistry and physics also underpins many of the chemical processes in use today across the modern chemical industry. That industry began in earnest in the 1800s in parallel with the breakthroughs in chemistry described above. Chemists and entrepreneurs like Herbert Henry Dow developed commercial chemical processes drawing from their own or others’ scientific work. In the case of Dow, his use of electrochemistry to produce chemicals from brine was foundational to the success of the U.S. chemical industry. According to Christopher Brett, (Electrochemistry: principles, methods, and applications):
“When a chemical reaction is driven by an electrical potential difference, as in electrolysis, or if a potential difference results from a chemical reaction as in an electric battery or fuel cell, it is called an electrochemical reaction. Unlike in other chemical reactions, in electrochemical reactions electrons are not transferred directly between atoms, ions, or molecules, but via the aforementioned electronically conducting circuit. This phenomenon is what distinguishes an electrochemical reaction from a conventional chemical reaction.”
From Dow’s groundbreaking efforts to now, the chemical industry is as foundational to our modern society as is electricity. Broadly, the sector can be categorized as producing polymers (all categories of man-made plastics prevalent in appliances, packaging, construction, containers, pipes, transportation, games, toys), synthetics and rubbers, life sciences (pharmaceuticals, healthcare products, animal care products, and agricultural products such as pesticides and herbicides), specialty products such as those used in chemical processes in power plants, and consumer products such as perfumes, soaps, detergents and cosmetics.
As noted at the beginning of this blog, most chemicals are imbedded in products during the upstream phase in chemical processing plants before becoming inputs into other products via additional manufacturing. Regardless, chemical plants need electricity to enable the heating and refrigeration integral to create the chemicals, as well as in the next steps in the manufacturing process.
In the case of electricity itself, chemical processes are used in fossil-fuel fired power plants such as coal and natural gas to reduce air emissions of certain elements such as NOx and SO2. Complex nuclear chemical processes are also used in emissions-free nuclear power plants. Electrochemistry is used in the development and manufacture of batteries, solar panels, and the many elements of construction used in various parts of electric infrastructure.
Here are some other ways the sectors overlap:
Reliance on transportation. Chemical products must be transported, often carefully if they are deemed hazardous. Electric utilities transport coal, but also must ensure deliveries of critical grid components, bucket trucks, copper wire, poles, and the list goes on…
Reliance on critical manufacturing. There is a bit of a circular nature to this one with the chemical industry in that the containers and other infrastructure used in their plants were in turn manufactured using those same chemicals downstream. Electric utilities derive all their infrastructure from manufacturers and the chemical industry that provides inputs into those manufacturers.
Environmental regulation/climate change. Both industries are heavily regulated for their air emissions of criteria pollutants. The electric sector emits more greenhouse gases, but the chemical and manufacturing sectors also play a role.
The use of natural gas. Natural gas comprises approximately 40% of domestic electricity generation. Natural gas is a key component of chemical processes. Natural gas continues to be scrutinized because of its impact as a greenhouse gas when burned, a fact that both industries must address.
Reliance on water. Water is used for cooling in a variety of chemical and manufacturing processes. Electric utilities also use traditional hydropower and new water-power technologies to produce emissions-free electricity. They also use water to cool nuclear and fossil-fuel fired power plants. But the resource can be constrained in drought conditions, especially out West.
Workforce challenges and the knowledge drain that has resulted from retirements in recent years impact both industries’ regular operations. Both the chemical and electric utilities must also train their workforces for future challenges such as AI deployment and other technological innovations.
Supply chain constraints that impact every aspect of infrastructure deployment and maintenance.
How to best use technology to create efficiencies and minimize expenses.
How to manage the cybersecurity risk that comes with those technology deployments. Both industries are acutely focused on this and could work even more collaboratively in the future.
I’ve learned that chemistry and chemicals are not boring (at least when discussing their history!). The amount that we all rely on this sector is eye opening to me.