Dow Chemical's 7,000-acre complex on the Gulf Coast in Freeport, Tex., at the mouth of the Brazos River, is a sprawling monument to the shale gas revolution. The bustling site, surrounded by marshland and waterways, is crowned by a 360-foot propane dehydrogen-ization tower, which is crawling with construction workers and next year will start converting cheap propane from fracked natural gas wells into hundreds of thousands of tons a year of raw materials for everything from house paint to automotive epoxy.
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