[wenc]

I would argue that physicists themselves do not unlock this specific economic activity as they are rarely directly involved in crude extraction. As a field, it is too far removed. It would be like saying mathematicians are instrumental to crude extraction. Sure, they provide the scientific/theoretical basis for that work, but the actual execution is performed by engineers and various other applied experts.

Unlike what most people think, engineering is only partly based on physical/mathematical models. In fact, much of engineering is based on heuristics and empirical knowledge/know-how, and some of this knowledge isn't quantitative and it's not in the province of most physicists.

The difference between physics and engineering is actually quite vast.

I think the economic activity referred to in the article is around large-scale physics activities by organizations like CERN.