I’ve been Googling away seeking a good source for timely stats on US chem production broken down by State, or by regions of the US, at worst. I’ve come up with nothing good. I thought I’d ask the SDopers for ideas on what search terms they’d use…or ideally if any SDoper in the industry knows how to readily find this information online (for free)? Thanks! - Jinx
I found this site although the article is over 10 years old.
There is always Wiki as well FWIW.
Dunno if those meet your needs but perhaps a start.
What constitutes “chem” in your mind?
Does a gasoline refinery count? what about an oil well? What about an aspirin factory? What about a soap factory? What about a soup factory? What about a mine? What about an ore refinery which takes in dirt & turns out raw aluminum or copper hunks?
Last year the US made 1 gazillion tons of stuff. 100% of it was made 100% out of of chemicals.
And 100% of the waste, other than heat, was chemicals. 100% of your personal biological waste is chemicals. Do we want to count just the intended products, or also the unintended “products”, i.e. the waste or by-products?
I have a friend in the plastics industry. The process for making the more complex plastics is a dozen or more fairly simple fairly pure ingredients go through 4 or 6 steps, with each producing various intemediate compounds which may be further refined, reworked, or shipped halfway across the country between steps.
In her case they often buy several “raw” materials, make an intermediary material from it in their plants, sell that intermediary to a 3rd party, who combines it with another intermediary material they bought from somebody else & sells the resulting next-stage intermediary back to her company, which then adds more stuff through several steps & finally has an actual finished material. That in turn is sold to somebody to actually make a bottle or a panel or a package or a whatever out of.
So 1 pound of finished platic may be considered to have 1 lb of “chem” in it, or 40 lbs, depending on whether you want to count each intermediate step in the manufacture as producing that many lbs of “chem”. And the stuff she buys as “raw” materials are themselves the result of an unknown number of steps through an unknown number of plants & vendors since their precursors were dug/pumped out of the dirt.
In short, Jinx old buddy, time to think some more about what you’re really trying to find out.
No, actually there is a definition for the chemical industry such as that offered here by the EPA. Pharmaceuticals are a separate industry, for one.
http://www.epa.gov/ispd/chemical/index.html I believe Wiki offers a similar definition at Chemical industry - Wikipedia
Yes, I have done my homework quite well. I agree with the post above saying only older data is easily found, at least beyond a high-cut overview of the chemical industry. I am not sure why this has suddenly become so proprietary. Maybe 18 months ago, I found some good info which is no longer available. (Maybe the oil companies don’t want us to know just HOW good they have it!)
- Jinx