Posted on 10/25/2019 11:28:30 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Concrete is the second-most used material on earth. It is also the second-largest emitter of CO2, with cement manufacturing accounting for 5 to 7 percent of annual emissions. The continued popularity of concrete as a material of choice in the design and construction industry, coupled with increasing unease of the environmental consequences, has put concrete firmly in the spotlight of innovation and experimentation. As a result, designers, architects, and researchers around the world are generating multiple visions for what the future of concrete in architecture could look like.
Concrete has been a material of choice for architects and builders for thousands of years, with the earliest known use dating from Syria and Jordan in 6000BC. Its low cost, versatility, fast application, and sheer familiarity to those involved in using it means that roughly 22 billion tons of concrete are poured every year. According to a recent BBC study, production of cement has increased thirtyfold since 1950, and a further fourfold since 1990, driven in part by postwar building in Europe, and building booms across Asia from the 1990s onwards. It is predicted that to keep pace with demands in South East Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, cement production may have to increase by 25% by 2030.
(Excerpt) Read more at archdaily.com ...
For specific building projects, cement is only made once before going into concrete for pours. And once concrete is poured into a building foundation, no further processing or transportation should be needed for that foundation for another hundred years or so if properly cured.
Plastics and other more recently proposed materials are still problematic. Even the longest lasting plastics will age much more quickly under pressure or with year-round solar exposure on the edges of a foundation. Many plastic ramps for auto repairs have collapsed, endangering those who used them. Production processes have have produced flaws. Construction workers wouldn’t always do enough to prevent solar exposure and other problems that would cause accelerated aging. Plastic production would obviously be too centralized (centrally controlled and regulated) and too often involves cancer-causing chemicals such as those in some of the furniture sold in Walmart stores.
I found that on Wikipedia. It refers only to the production of Portland cement. Regionally, there are river dredges that bring up aggregate materials, and they are replenished by river flow. Transporting all of that is a fairly monumental task, that goes largely unnoticed. Local consumption of concrete is not huge, but there are nearby facilities for mixing aggregate and cement, and trucking it to sites, as there necessarily must be.
I recall a big to-do about some of the rebuilding in Afghanistan, when the requirement for America-sourced materials ran into the realities of shipping cement and aggregate half way around the planet.
Tell them it’s China’s fault and they’ll shut up...
Concrete emits food for trees and plant life. Ergo, concrete is good for trees and the greening of the earth.
God bless concrete!
Salt is cheap and easy to use. I don’t see it going away. Especially here in Ohio.
The chemical is called brine. It is a mixture of Water, regular salt and either Calcium Chloride or Magnesium Chloride.
They add the other salts to lower the freezing point of the water
It is typically applied hot.
In Kenya they build their villages with manure. I think that is what the left wants us to do instead.
“It is also the second-largest emitter of CO2”
I thought it was cows, or was it airplanes, or was it cars, or natural gas, or plastic straws...
“Tell them it’s China’s fault and they’ll shut up...”
We keep being told that if we (the United States) simply SHUTS DOWN, that the world will be saved.
As you point out - not quite. The question that I ask my parents (and others) is very simple: Do you support blowing China off the map? Because if you don’t, they’ll simply keep gobbling up any Global Warming efforts we make...and the world will STILL be doomed.
If the people who keep screaming about Global Warming REALLY want to cool the planet, they can do what people and animals have done for billions of years and do it with shade. On a planetary scale, it simply means getting some stuff into the upper atmosphere, or into orbit above Earth. And that is FAR CHEAPER than anything else being discussed.
...but if their goal is to shut down Western Civilization, which it was for this bunch before they created Global Warming, then cutting down on the energy of the sun being received here won’t work for them - it’s far too cheap and un-intrusive.
It emits CO2?????
Ferchrissakes!! It should be eliminated!!! We should live in renewable huts and tents like Mexicans and Africans!!
OMG, libs want us to go back to straw huts... after we pay reparations for the cultural appropriation involved in doing that.
The whole reason for using concrete is it’s high mass, low cost, and most generic material available for structural purposes. Ideal for foundations, partly because it is initially cast in place as a fluid, filling voids in the excavation for a solid foundation. Ideal in compression, its use also happens to reduce many other external environmental impacts.
Regarding he aggregate, regional geologists can and do provide statistical analyses of aggregate location, allowing engineers to specify the least cost general purpose aggregate base mix used beneath foundations as sub-base course, lessening the volume of some structural cross sections. Some locations have more angular aggregate, others have more river-rounded aggregate.
This article merely manifests leftists are searching for any portion of any common industry they can attack to try and extort funds. That’s why they sought to universalize healthcare. That’s why they promote unions to tackle Labor.
If they could tax the air you breathe, space you occupy, and water you drink, they’ll attempt it.
Romans used volcanic ash in their mix. Which also made it curable under water, I believe.
From the article. ...
” The challenge for architects will be to ensure that such innovative solutions, with the potential to fundamentally transform how we do or do not use concrete, begins to become accepted in a traditionally conservative industry. Otherwise, it is clear that the environmental impact of concrete as it is currently constituted will see the material overtaken by its green competitors.”
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There’s 0bamas famous words. ...”fundamentally transform “.
These stupid liberals really need a quick swift kick in the butt. Rush is right. ..liberals destroy everything they touch.
Concrete good!
libtard architects, PC bullsh## and an equality driven, diverse minority contractor builder BAD
Unless it's used for roads in Michigan......
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/thomas-edisons-concrete-houses
Thomas Edison built some homes out of concrete using a one-pour mold. Most of them were pretty plain, but some of them were very ornate and detailed.
For awhile I lived about 2 miles from the old, abandoned Edison Cement Factory in New Jersey. I would mow my elderly neighbor’s yard and have a beer and chat.
After about the third time of him talking about him working at the Edison Cement factory and his various stories about “Tommy” it finally dawned on me.
“Wait - Tommy? As in Thomas Edison!!??”
“Well - who the hell did you think I was talkin’ about!?”
Dig a hole. Put a climate change believer in the bottom. Fill the hole with concrete and beer bottles. Problem solved.
I think we should go back to building and powering everything with wood.
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