Some chemical reactions proceed with alacrity. Most, though-including many that are industrially important-need a helping hand in the form of a catalyst.
Organism engineers design microbes to do industrially useful things, like bioremediate toxic waste sites or replace petroleum-based textiles with renewable ones.
On the other hand, lead was easy to extract and work, and almost embarrassingly profitable to produce industrially, and tetraethyl lead did indubitably stop engines from knocking.
And that's just on top of the normal and still damaging air pollution and water pollution that comes from an industrially intensive and dirty activity.
The debate erupted across the industrially advanced world on January 22nd when Britain became the first European country to legalize the creation of cloned human embryos.
And even if it takes off, it's unclear whether it's any better for our health or the health of the planet than the industrially produced meat most of us eat today.
But a priority will be less industrialised crops such as berries and avocados, which have not experienced yield gains comparable to industrially grown maize and soya over recent decades.
To assemble the manpower, the material, and the finances; to cut a swath through the middle of Panama and join the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean--only an industrially sophisticated nation could do that.
Importing more industrially produced food doesn't only boost that industry in Australia, it will over time drive small farmers who can't compete out of business and put downward pressure on standards here.
Impatient with precedent, sensitive to the new needs and conflicts of a nation expanding industrially and asserting its place in the world, he was a prime mover in shaping the modern presidency as we know it today.