The activation of chemical bonds is perhaps the most important area of modern chemistry. In our never ending search for cheap raw materials, the use of abundant but traditionally unreactive molecules as synthetic precursors is becoming increasingly more attractive. A major goal of this endeavor is to devise not only better methods to produce bulk (commodity) chemicals but also to synthesize new materials for industry, medicine and research. Unreactive chemicals include compounds such as hydrocarbons and other media which, under normal circumstances, do not react with other substrates (or themselves). Two primary examples are molecular nitrogen and saturated alkanes. These substances represent very inexpensive potential sources of nitrogen and carbon, respectively. Hydrocarbons (i.e., oil and petroleum products) are the largest fraction of world primary energy production and are thus readily available starting materials. The same is true for dinitrogen as it is a major component of the earth’s atmosphere. In addition, the activation of general classes of inert bonds, such as the C-Cl, C-F or C-O bonds, has importance in the destruction of certain man-made environmental toxins (PCB’s, CFC’s, etc.) and in the potential application of much cheaper chlorinated compounds as reagents (e.g., in Grignard reactions). The activation of specific C-C bonds has great potential in speciality chemical synthesis as does, to a lesser extent, the Si-Si bond in materials science.