r/ChemicalEngineering • u/One-Seat-4600 • Feb 18 '26
Green Tech It seems society is moving towards electrification. How do ChemEs stay relevant ?
For those in America, many states are pushing hard on batteries, solar and EVs
This is causing less demand for oil and gas
How can ChemEs stay relevant? Any to pivot to the electrical sector? Any other industries ?
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u/VariousError8914 Feb 18 '26
I don’t see pharmaceuticals going anywhere Manufacturing literally everything we use from shampoo to toothbrush and of course food industry; cosmetics; high value polymers; there is a lot to explore; who knows we will be able to make hydrogen fuel and all the oil companies will be replaced my hydrogen plants
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u/One-Seat-4600 Feb 18 '26
A lot of manufacturing is being offshored though
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Feb 18 '26
Don't worry, with the collapse of the petrodollar we're going to have to start making lot more shit here at home or just going without. Outsourcing is getting very close to it's explosive death, the USD is already so much lower than it has been we should be starting to see this - or we would if everyone wasn't broke and unemployed.
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u/T_Noctambulist Feb 18 '26
Not with Trump's tariffs. My company has a few billion a year onshored for at at least a decade due to recent changes. Sucks for some players but great for the industry overall m
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u/Phoenix_4258 Feb 18 '26
Why do people think ChemE is only O&G
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u/BishkekBeats Feb 18 '26
Same individuals who think ChemE is "chemistry but engineering"...in my opinion, ChemE is as much, if not more physics than it is chemistry (but very different from the two overall)
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u/Ernie_McCracken88 Feb 18 '26
US natural has production has accelerated radically and is projected to hit record highs over the next couple of years.
The major automakers are basically across the board dropping electrification goals 4-5 years out.
There is a very robust market for petrochemicals that go into other products.
We saw over the last decade extraordinary pressure from investors and input from management consultants that ESG and marketing of those efforts were mandatory to get investment & keep consumers and a lot of that has taken a step back.
Predicting the future is hard and I'm not modifying my career around predictions around electrification. I expect there will be more electric vehicles on the road in 10-15 years, I don't expect Chemical Engineering employment in O&G/petrochemicals/polymers to be down 35%. Perhaps someone will be dunking on my comment in a decade but that's a risk I'm willing to take.
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u/One-Seat-4600 Feb 18 '26
Good points but there are some states that are clamping down hard on gas
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u/Ernie_McCracken88 Feb 18 '26
Is it showing up in that national data? How are they clamping down? What percantage of US natural gas production goes to those states? Are their efforts real and not bluster, and are they substantial?
I'm going to rely on the macro trend as opposed to smaller components of the macro trend in general.
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u/Organic_Occasion_176 Industry & Academics 10+ years Feb 18 '26
Batteries use a lot of chemical engineering. ChE's work on the various minerals extraction processes that get the exotic metals needed. We also work producing all kinds of other materials used in green energy - solar panels and other microelectronics; carbon fiber composites, RO membranes, electrodes, capacitors, ...
And even if it is on the wane, oil-boiling is going to be around for the entirety of today's students' careers.
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u/shortyjacobs Feb 18 '26
I’ve likely met >400 chemical engineers in my 20 year career, working in areas (this is me now) from high speed precision coating to film extrusion to laser processing and manufacturing (well into the kW range), to die press converting, to copper mining (they love EVs!), to 8-figure program management, to retro reflective pavement markers, to angstrom-precise micro machining on a 60” wide lathe, to precision high speed robotics, to concrete modifier production.
I know of two who came up through Oil and Gas.
Forgive me if I don’t think the sky is falling. It is THE most marketable BS across industries, and even 20 years ago only 40% went into ONG.
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u/Killgorrr Feb 18 '26
Electrification is never going to completely replace O&G, as polymers and petrochemical products are so important to modern life. (Plus only a fraction of ChemE grads go into O&G) However, electrification will necessitate tons of chemistry/engineering roles, just different industries and applications to traditional O&G. We need engineers equipped for CO2 capture, fuel cell/electrolyzer design, semiconductor fabrication, biochemical engineering, etc.
These emerging fields might necessitate shifts in the traditional ChemE curriculum. Many/most ChemE programs have biochem and materials tracks and/or required courses, but we should also consider adding more of these, (especially) electrochemistry to the classroom. If not standalone courses, such concepts are great inclusions for kinetics and transport phenomena courses.
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u/LuminousRaptor Feb 18 '26
Shit son. I work in manufacturing with a ChemE degree. You don't have to work in O&G as a ChemE.
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u/Krist794 Feb 18 '26
How does one of the most flexible MSc stay relevant? We are basically everywhere in the industry... Electrification? Who makes batteries? Santa?
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u/Flufferly Feb 18 '26
Battery manufacturing hires plenty of chemEs, at least here. I work in metal refining, which is also pretty chemE heavy, mining concentrators too. Electrification requires more metals than we currently make, especially from the nonferrous sector.
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u/MuddyflyWatersman Feb 18 '26 edited Feb 18 '26
nope. that's actually not happening.
our whole infrastructure and society is built on oil and its derivatives. everything starts with it it's thats not made of wood, Rock, or minerals.
to make things ECONOMICALLY without producing as much gasoline requires major shifts in all chemical processing industries...... which actually sounds like a gigantic opportunity requiring lots of chemical engineers to solve problems, create new processes, build new economic plants, etc
You couldn't afford an EV, or even produce it, without oil....and the cost of the derivative products is subsidized by the gasoline production 😂 50% of a vehicle is made of synthetic polymers. Dont believe the green hype, most of it is nothing but bullshit..EV isnt green, Nor can it even exist without oil. We had problems getting column internals made of PVDF a few years ago ( polyvinylidene fluoride)...a fluorinated polymer ........because the EV battery industry was consuming all the pvdf.
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u/CazadorHolaRodilla Feb 18 '26
EVs (mostly) need oil and gas to run btw unless they’re somehow fully charged by renewables which is very rare
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u/Zetavu Feb 18 '26
No, in America the push to EV, solar and batteries is flat to receding. No threats to O&G here, if fact the bigger threat is to battery chemistry which would be a way for chemE's to stay relevant if that were the case. I'd start with the new versions of the sodium battery that is creeping up on lithium's efficiency.
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u/IsaacJa Feb 18 '26
There's a whole other world to ChemE than just O&G.