Decarbonization of the chemical industry is an important step towards halting the progress of anthropogenic climate change. Electrochemical reactions driven with solar power and other renewable energy sources to manufacture commodity chemicals, such as ammonia, ethylene, and hydrogen have been recent targets to achieve this goal. While these commodity chemicals are currently being produced by well-established thermochemical processes, such as the Haber-Bosch process, each product has a clear alternative electrochemical synthetic pathway. Ammonia can be produced via nitrogen reduction (or Haber-Bosch with electrochemically produced hydrogen), ethylene via CO2 reduction (CO2R), and hydrogen via water reduction (Scheme 1). In addition, while the simplest operation is to drive these processes using grid-based renewable electricity alone, eventual electrolyzers can be integrated with solar-driven cells to afford photoelectrochemical (PEC) devices that directly harness the sun's energy and enable distributed chemical manufacturing. While these processes historically have not been economically viable, the development of improved catalysts, membranes, photovoltaics, and government incentives drive forward their feasibility. Scheme 1: Comparison of the thermal and electrochemical pathways for the production of ammonia, ethylene, and hydrogen.