> Propylene is the second most important starting product in the petrochemical industry after ethylene. It is the raw material for a wide variety of [...] In the year 2013 about 85 million tonnes of propylene were processed worldwide.
So think of this like finding a better algorithm for some very common type of computation.
(1) For a major chemical like this even a few percent improvement in the cost is industry-changing, (2) decarbonization means finding new ways to make all "petrochemicals" and (3) any kind of space industrialization similarly requires some strategy to make just about everything with a small industrial base.
Sounds boring, but per Wikipedia:
> Propylene is the second most important starting product in the petrochemical industry after ethylene. It is the raw material for a wide variety of [...] In the year 2013 about 85 million tonnes of propylene were processed worldwide.
So think of this like finding a better algorithm for some very common type of computation.
(1) For a major chemical like this even a few percent improvement in the cost is industry-changing, (2) decarbonization means finding new ways to make all "petrochemicals" and (3) any kind of space industrialization similarly requires some strategy to make just about everything with a small industrial base.