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In what way is concrete a sustainable building material? It's a huge carbon emitter, a poor insulator, concrete production is devastating to natural habitats tu
by raisin_churn 4y ago
In what way is concrete a sustainable building material? It's a huge carbon emitter, a poor insulator, concrete production is devastating to natural habitats turned into sand quarries, etc. Plant-based construction materials, e.g. hemp, seem to be vastly superior on every ecological consideration.
Plus, an unreinforced concrete dome has to be one of the inherently least population dense structures, and density potential is probably as important a consideration in sustainability as actual construction techniques.
Edit: not necessarily a dome, but also not able to safely scale the structure very high with this technique without losing the only purported advantage, the low labor cost.
- jeffrallen 4y agoYou forgot to mention that PVC comes from oil, and is a health hazard.
- raisin_churn 4y agoIndeed, although I suspect the PVC in the inflatable form could be replaced with some other, actually sustainable material. It's therefore an even bigger indictment of this company that they didn't even bother to do this and are somehow touting their process as sustainable.
- defrost 4y agoWhile not sustainable concrete made from fly-ash locks up ongoing and historic waste from coal fired power stations. We're phasing out our 60 year old coal station given the sheer amount of solar power we now generate in W.Australia - but we still have 60 years of fly ash to deal with. [1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-18/geopolymer-concrete-coal-mining-town/100464518 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-18/geopolymer-concrete-c... [2] https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2022/08/Collie-holds-key-to-unique-manufacture-of-concrete.aspx https://www.mediastatements.wa.gov.au/Pages/McGowan/2022/08/... [3] https://colliecrete.com.au/ https://colliecrete.com.au/
- raisin_churn 4y agoYes, fly ash concrete seems more sustainable than concrete without it (provided that the fly ash already exists) in certain applications where its particular properties are beneficial. I seem to recall it having greater durability under compressive loads, so roads can be built that require less frequent repair. In the US, we have enough roads falling apart I think we could use all the fly ash concrete we could possibly make, and we wouldn't have any extra to build substandard, energy-inefficient housing.
- imgabe 4y agoYeah, replacing wood, which is a carbon sink, with concrete, which is a huge emitter of CO2, seems like a bad trade.
- 6stringmerc 4y agoWhat about massive bamboo at scale for use in like particle boards and such? Anything can be strong with enough epoxy!
- charlieyu1 4y agoConcrete doesn’t burn.
- imgabe 4y agoEverything inside the concrete shell can still burn: wood flooring, carpeting, furniture. People will probably furr out the walls with wood and drywall anyway so they can hide wiring and pipes and so they don’t feel like they’re living in a prison cell.
- bergenty 4y agoI prefer to live somewhere that lasts more than 30 years.
- z9znz 4y agoAgreed about the concrete. Fortunately there are efforts to replace concrete (in general) with other materials - some organic (fungi). > Plus, an unreinforced concrete dome This is not a dome. It could conceivable be more population dense if/when they figure out how to magically get rebar into it :P. But that's not going to happen; and the real future benefits are likely going to be along the "working with nature" approach (where you use natural growing/expanding processes and direct them to suit your needs). In terms of future human survival, I'm surprised there's so little shown or seen regarding underground living. While obviously more complex due to the excavation and reinforcement processes, the survival and energy benefits are much higher. And with modern light gathering/direction tech, it doesn't have to be devoid of daylight.
- raisin_churn 4y ago> This is not a dome. Thanks for the correction, I read the page without enabling JS on it, so the images didn't load, and every previous iteration of this technology I've seen has been limited to producing domes or arches. Nonetheless, even if you could, in practice, stack multiple floors using this new form, no developed country with any potential seismic activity or hurricane/typhoon threat will let you build multi-story structures like this (or perhaps even single-story ones), and I think you're right to use the word "magic" about using rebar with this, since installing rebar is a very labor intensive process, thus negating the only alleged benefit of this technique.