3 ms·
My guess would be water-jet cut stone blocks. At the quarry you often cut stuff off in big slabs; once you’ve got the slabs at the water-jet, you could cut stan
by tonyarkles 6y ago
My guess would be water-jet cut stone blocks. At the quarry you often cut stuff off in big slabs; once you’ve got the slabs at the water-jet, you could cut standard dimension blocks out of the slab and have a pretty modular building material.
- Gravityloss 6y agoYeah that's what I meant. Why would one prefer concrete over that?
- rch 6y agoImagine the scale of the gaping maw left behind after a century of quarrying for high quality stone to support modern city construction.
- Gravityloss 6y agoConcrete materials come from somewhere as well. But yes, if the material would cost more, it would be used more sparingly. Maybe I come from a country that has plenty of solid rock to go around.
- rch 6y agoWhile not my field at all, I would imagine that given the relatively generic character of the source material required for concrete it might be easier to find suitable locations for extraction. Although I seem to recall reading about potential shortages for certain types of sand, so maybe I'm wrong about that. Generally speaking, whenever specific qualities of a raw material become linked to its intended use, the market becomes more willing to accept negative externalities in its procurement.