Making concrete has an enormous carbon footprint — but, reports JDavidsonNYC, new technologies may bring dramatic improvements
Clockwise from upper left: the Pantheon in Rome; Boston City Hall; Saarinen’s TWA terminal at JFK airport; Zaha Hadid’s Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Dubai. Photo: Getty Images Imagine your refrigerator is made of concrete, a two-ton slab buckling the kitchen floor — that’s your individual share of the world’s concrete production this year alone. Next year, you’ll be statistically responsible for another, slightly larger refrigerator-size block and another the year after that.
Pourable, shapable, abundant, durable, versatile, reliable, fireproof, bombproof, earthquake-resistant, and cheap — what more could you ask of a building material? Add some steel reinforcement bars and concrete’s what the modern world is made of. It provides the backbone of skyscrapers and the brawn for dams but also the sensuous curves of Eero Saarinen’s TWA Terminal and Zaha Hadid’s Sheikh Zayed Bridge in Abu Dhabi.
Concrete may not be sexy, but it’s got its share of jaunty entrepreneurs, each with a different strategy. Brimstone Energy — a start-up headquartered in Silicon Valley, backed by venture capital, and founded by a couple of Caltech grads — is betting on a different kind of rock. The company envisions replacing limestone with a substance that is both carbon-free and freely available: calcium silicate. “The cheapest way to run a cement plant is to have it sit on top of the quarry.
Biomason has promoted bacteria from maintenance staff to the creative team, fabricating this new cement from scratch. “This is the way to decarbonize the industry,” says founder Ginger Dosier. “We’re in the age of biology.” She’s not alone in that belief.
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