Industry In Rapture

* See also Industries_For_New_Rapture
* See also Rapture_Economy
* See also Rapture Technologies
* See also Era_Electronics
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Factors Defining The Situation :
: NO HUGE MASS PRODUCTION LINES ( This is NOT bad fantasy Infinite BS )
: Lack of Local Materials
: Repairs and Recycling ( becomes a significant industry )
: Mostly Small Scale Business ( limited skill pools and breadth of products would be the reality )
: Largest Market is Consumables for Population of 20000 - 40000 ( Food production and Utilities only 'huge'/mass categories )
: Rapture Agriculture - Inefficient Methods ( versus what is done on The Surface ) increases the Labor required even with Hydroponic mechanization )
: Geothermal_Power as the Primary Energy Source ( you cannot mass burn coal and oil like is done on the Surface )
: Limited Market and Production ( and Labor Pool) for Employment ( not the same as a 'Surface' city which is a concentration for a much larger external population )
: Self-Sufficiency ( Rapture being Closed-Off halfway thru its normal history )
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Whale Hunting :
Whales are far ranging and finding them can be a problem even for fleets of ship ( which can move far faster than Submarines ). So it would be unlikely for a large whaling industry to exist in Rapture. More likely it would be opportunistic hunting with the ships hunting only a few they came upon and managed to kill. The whale materials produced STILL are easily usable in many many ways.
That scene we saw on the ride to the Welcome Center, with the whale going by was odd. There is no reason for that kind of whale to be so deep ( its food is up near the surface ) -- a Sperm Whale might have made more sense ( as they do dive very deep to hunt ).
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Evidence Ryan Companies Were Producing ADAM Products BEFORE He Took Over Fontaine Futuristics In 1959 :
That Presentation in the Bathysphere as you descend, has an "Incinerate!" Plasmid advertisement with Ryan Industries as the brand.  Why would that little 'Welcome Presentation' be reworked with new content like that ? -- As by then noone was coming to Rapture to see such a thing ( -OR- was Ryan bringing more people down at that late a time - still hardly the ordinary immigrants that spiel was originally created for ?? Unlikely. )
Signs on the buildings ... Who has time to put up advertising signs during a %27civil War%27 and when noone is riding Bathyspheres any more to be able to see them ?? 
So this may imply that Ryan Industries (and others) were creating there own Plasmids/Tonics ( maybe not the volume or as many types as Fontaine was producing, as he had a bigger slave-child-produced ADAM supply, and a major head start on development and research ).  A Timeframe of mid-50s maybe ??  Ryan, taking his own advice to "Make a Better Product" ?  It never was made clear how many others (like Sinclair), eventually also were in the ADAM product producing business.  Perhaps quite a few were, and many of them specialized -- like for the many various medical treatments.   We did see evidence of bootleggers of these products.
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Hmm, ADAM Cancer Therapy Drugs to be sold covertly on The Surface to a few rich people willing to pay anything to continue living - That might make an interesting plotline to include in the expanded 'Canon'.
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Stockpile NEEDED :
Even just simple things like Lead-acid batteries wear out -- like the 4 year typical very predictable life cycle of our automobile batteries (Note - still using that simple technology ). You have to replace/repair them with more lead anodes eventually. 
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Raw Material - OIL :
Early oil refining was 'simple' distillation and not the later (later 1940s) sophisticated cracking and reformation processes. Rapture would have to import/stockpile petroleum based materials - at least for lubricating oils and such, and maybe as components for Plastics. ( NOTE - Infinites's Columbia has no explanation for its obtaining any raw materials. They NEED them, but nothing is shown of how they obtain them OR pay for any such ). The Rapture Reborn MMORPG would have much more time to go into this issue, and have a Plausible means to provide such important materials. 
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Nearest Petroleum/Petrochemical (or Coal) Source to Rapture?? ( For Plastics/Lubricants/Solvents/Etc ... ) :
* Off coast of Greenland and the other North by North East of Iceland ( a coupla hundred miles away (or more) --- rather remote sites for a Rapture production facility )
* A Good thing that Rapture does not have to rely on Petroleum for energy ...
Question about how far away some of Raptures resource producers might have to be to even partially meet Ryan's 'self-sufficiency' ... :
Some Operations like Oil Well Drilling would not be small ( think the equivalent of a North Sea drilling rig, except all under water to complicate things ). Ryan at first could have had some of his remaining surface organization have a Drilling company come in to sink a well ( or a series of them ) and then 'fake' its failure and abandon it - to have Rapture personnel then set up a base to tap the site and bring it back to Rapture. But that would not be a long term solution. Rapture would have to maintain the resource -- to be able to drill its own when the wells went dry ( and already have a backup source ready to supply from, while the next source was located and drilled ). Long distance submarine traffic would be required, adding to the overhead costs. 
Doing without makes for a cleaner story.
Other Operations :
* Sea Floor Mineral Nodule mining for alloying metals ( unfortunately not anywhere close to Rapture's location ) would still require processing of the raw materials economically. That is usually at depths in excess of 3000 feet, with greater effort and difficulties. ( The value of the minerals though could warrant the attempts to mine them - coupled with Rapture's advancements in Underwater Technologies ).
* Conventional mining (except underwater) : Unfortunately, most materials even on The Surface only come from certain viable locations. Marine deposits are rare. Sources for critical materials would be thousands of miles away would have to be tapped into, and with much greater difficulty than an equivalent surface operation.
With ADAM, it is within the theoretical realm that biological engineering could have produced tailored organisms (ie- bacteria) that precipitate and concentrate valuable minerals/chemicals (like Gold) out of Sea Water. Unfortunately the colder water is, the slower the metabolic rates for organisms are. Some huge processing plants would have to be constructed utilizing the geothermal heat sources just to make the huge volumes of warm seawater this process requires ( assuming any such genetic tailoring would work ). SO, Alot of Overhead Costs when likely not too practical -- even IF any such biological process could be developed.
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Rubber For Rapture :
Rubber is one of the important Industrial Age materials ( flexible tubes, tires, etc ... ) required for modern technology. Synthetic rubber(s) were being produced before WW2 ( and made during the war when natural rubber sources were cut off ). Rapture would NEED locally-made rubber materials (for replacements), so could/would be manufacturing it. Most would have originally been produced on The Surface, but Rubber wears out/disintegrates eventually, and is a critical material for much modern technology. Synthetic rubber would likely be the only long term solution.
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Lightbulbs Wear Out :
So Ryan had better have planned for long-term manufacturing of replacements, AND possibly also using longer life designs ( thicker quality filaments and better vacuum ). And a stockpile of Tungsten ... 
Fluorescent lighting could also be used, and generally they have a longer lifespan.
Heh, I just considered that for BS Columbia, carbon filaments ( shorter lifespan, and not as bright ) were what had been used. With those hugified structures (& interiors) and overuse of huge signs and such, the number of serfs they would need to constantly be replacing huge numbers of bulbs would be large ( and WHEREVER the supplies for bulbs could come from - it might as well have come 'Out of the Prophets Ass' for all that was shown about such issues ).
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Solution - A 100-year Stockpile :
Actually there would be so many different materials needed for a modern technological city ( and for city expansion, if not also repairs and consumables that weren't recyclable ). The production facilities for them are so huge and extensive to generate each of them, that it would be generally simpler to just collect (buy) a '100-year Stockpile' of all materials projected to be needed from efficient surface sources. Places to store these (without deterioration) would be needed, but the tunnel boring machines could likely be used to economically build as much storage space as is needed. SO More dark underground passages tunnels and caverns to have MMORPG adventures in ...
If Ryan was worried that 100 year supply would not be enough ( WW3 radioactivity might take longer to dissipate ), he could keep expanding the stockpile. So hidden away in the ruins are all these stockpiles useful to rebuilding Rapture.
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Locations Of Industry In Rapture :
List :
Cement
Recycling/Salvage
Metal Remelt
Farms (inside and outside)
Forests
Distributed Small Manufacturing ( few very large production for a population of 20-40K ).
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Important Materials For Undersea Technology :
Zinc needed for anti-corrosion mechanisms ( important infrastructure in Rapture )
It is used up in its use, requires replacement.
One of those 'Hundred Year Stockpile' items which Rapture would have.
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