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Concrete is one of the biggest sources of emissions in the world and it feels like a blind spot in our push for greener solutions. Is there any research being
by danpalmer 5y ago
Concrete is one of the biggest sources of emissions in the world and it feels like a blind spot in our push for greener solutions.
Is there any research being done into alternatives that will scale to what we use concrete for? I've seen alternative home building methods, and different urban planning can reduce the need for large buildings that need it, but I haven't seen good alternatives for roads, tunnels, bridges, etc. Steel sometimes works but has its own problems and is more expensive.
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- wil421 5y agoWhy don’t we focus on the problems we can solve today? Cars, power generation, and improve industrial process that emit green house gasses. We could solve these issues “today” in a sense. Creating new carbon neutral building materials that last as long as current stuff seems like a huge risk. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- ajmurmann 5y agoWhy not both? If we had a carbon tax the market would drive us to save wherever is most achievable
- yonaguska 5y agoThat is until the well-connected lobby carbon tax loopholes into the implementation and use the carbon tax yet another tool for regulatory capture to stomp out competition. Or, companies simply shift more production to developing countries to skirt taxes. We can create ecological disasters over there instead... While I like the idea of attaching monetary costs to otherwise ignored externalities, I don't see the carbon tax having any chance of being fairly and effectively implemented.
- kaibee 5y ago> That is until the well-connected lobby carbon tax loopholes into the implementation This is a fully general counter-argument against doing anything. iirc Canada has a carbon-tax and its working fine?
- orhmeh09 5y agoWorking fine by what measure?
- imtringued 5y agoIntroduce CO2 tariffs. Get the republicans on board through protectionist policies that actually make sense.
- csw-001 5y agoIt's funny you should say this - I just recently was on an airplane with a bunch of folks returning from a big Vegas concrete convention. Eavesdropping a bit here and there, it seemed the topic of "greener" concrete was big. The person in the seat next to me was describing how they recently started using a concrete and steel fiber mix so they could pour less and achieve the same strength and durability - the main "customer pitch" she told me was that it would was a lot greener. No idea if any of that is true, but it was interesting to see how focused on it they all were.
- ceejayoz 5y agoI'd imagine it's kinda like "clean coal" - more marketing buzzword than actual significant benefit.
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- TheFreim 5y ago> significant benefit Isn't at least a little benefit alright? It's not "significant benefit" or "nothing.
- ceejayoz 5y agoNot necessarily. At times, a tiny band-aid on things can be counterproductive. See replacing plastic straws with paper/reusable ones; it's a drop in the bucket, and it's used in part to distract from the much larger overall issue of single-use plastics. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwashing
- TheFreim 5y agoI don't see how paper straws distract from anything. Every time I see a paper straw my immediate thoughts are about how it's not plastic that'll be getting thrown out.
- 0x_rs 5y agoConcrete production represents 4-8% of all worldwide CO2 production. It's a significant percentage. There's talk on sequestering CO2 in concrete itself but I'm not sure how far it has gotten. I do remember some plants in France or Germany having facilities to process clinker byproducts. I wonder how more efficient is that.
- kieranmaine 5y agoThis company creates reduced carbon cement - https://www.ecocem.ie/ecocem-materials-limited-raises-e22-5m-from-breakthrough-energy-ventures-and-breakthrough-energy-ventures-europe/ https://www.ecocem.ie/ecocem-materials-limited-raises-e22-5m... This podcast has a couple of interesting mentions on low carbon concrete - https://www.npr.org/transcripts/923966126 https://www.npr.org/transcripts/923966126
- nelblu 5y agohttps://www.carboncure.com/ https://www.carboncure.com/
- LeifCarrotson 5y agoHonestly, I think we actually want a high-carbon cement: One full of graphene or other carbon compounds, pulled from the atmosphere. Per the article yesterday [1] we need to remove 2 teratonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere to meet IPCC targets. Maybe some of that will be done by taxpayer-funded carbon sequestration operations that exist only to pump the carbon 'away' in underground reserviors. But I think that if we've laid down 1 Tt of concrete, and could develop something better than that which is carbon-negative, people would be more than happy to pay for that CO2 sequestration, and that progress might actually survive an election cycle. [1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/engineers-you-can-disrupt-climate-change https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/engineers-you-ca...
- vegetablepotpie 5y agoYes there is. Geopolymer cement provides an 80% reduction in co2 emissions vs traditional cement. CarbonCure has developed a version of concrete that absorbs co2 during its production, though it cannot be poured and can only be used to make prefab shapes [1]. An issue with these new cements is that there is no economic incentive for companies to change production processes and switch. [1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=MkE-2npiqFc https://youtube.com/watch?v=MkE-2npiqFc
- tastyfreeze 5y agoIt isnt just cost that prevents a switch. Some building codes explicitly state Portland cement as the allowed material. Geopolymer proponents have been working to change building code to stating required material properties instead. Unsurprisingly, geopolymers have taken off in countries with less regulation.
- legym 5y agoBeen looking into graphene and it can reduce the amount of concrete and increase the strength. Of course, can graphene be made at a commercial level and out of the lab https://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-based-concrete-used-commercial-setting-first-time https://www.graphene-info.com/graphene-based-concrete-used-c...
- XorNot 5y agoConcrete though is big and stationary. It needs heat, not combustion to make, so it is amenable to fuel source switching. For me it's in the bucket of "problems which don't matter till we solve electricity". Clean, cheap electricity == clean, cheap concrete.
- phreeza 5y agoThe majority of the CO2 emissions from concrete come from the production chemical reaction, not from the heat generation, though.
- XorNot 5y agoWikipedia [1] suggests 50% is from calcination and 40% from burning fuel. There's plenty of room for reductions on the fuel side. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concrete https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_concre...
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- patrickk 5y agoOne material that should be used much more in building but isn't: straw! It's become a recent obsession of mine. * has a long history of use (no research needed) * is eco friendly (in fact sequesters carbon) * cheap * readily available * pliable material that is forgiving to build with, even for novices * quick to erect walls * is a waste material - usually ploughed back into fields or burned * has very impressive thermal and sound insulation, so no additional insulation is needed, unlike a concrete walled home or building I could go on.... Of course not every building or structure can be made from straw bales, but many houses, warehouses or smaller commercial buildings could be. It's a very low hanging fruit in the battle against climate change. https://www.amazon.com/Building-Straw-Bales-Self-Builders-Sustainable/dp/0857842285 https://www.amazon.com/Building-Straw-Bales-Self-Builders-Su...
- vxNsr 5y agoI read that straw is basically outlawed bec it’s hard to make a house with it and still be on the right side of fire safety codes. Especially if you’re using it as part of your insulation strategy.
- mercutio2 5y agoA straw bale wall burns MUCH more slowly than a stick frame wall. So this is really not accurate (and standard fire codes have accepted this). The bigger problem is that people don't like giving up so much of their footprint to 18-inch-thick walls.
- patrickk 5y agoWhere is it outlawed?
- baybal2 5y ago> Is there any research being done into alternatives that will scale to what we use concrete for? Flyash, and other pozzolanic industrial wastes. There are literally mountains of it. Problem? There is no "standard flyash," every power station uses a bit different fuel. Same for industrial wastes. Second option are natural geopolymers, but they are not that common, and coincidentally, most of countries with a lot of geopolymer deposits are rather rich, and that undercuts economic incentives.
- fomine3 5y agoI expect concretes win for wooden house with car vs concrete apartment with public transport.