Cheap natural gas is lighting a fire under manufacturing, a sector of the U.S. economy given up for dead as the Rust Belt spread and the so-called service economy became the nation's fallback. Taking advantage of low-cost feedstock, a petrochemical industry boom on the U.S. Gulf Coast is expanding to areas near the great gas-shale beds.
Cheap gas is eating into coal's share of the power industry's fuel market. It is even changing the U.S. from an importer to an exporter of liquefied natural gas as recently constructed LNG terminals are being converted into production plants.