#52 What is green concrete?

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Your faithful writer,
Dr. Daniel Smith

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, today’s Daily Concept is going green. 🍀

Today’s topic is green concrete, a new technological development that aims to make the global construction industry more environmentally-friendly.

You might be surprised to learn that concrete — and cement, a key part of concrete — is one of the biggest contributors to climate change worldwide.

Things to Know about Concrete & Cement:

• Concrete is the second-most used material on Earth — after water

• For every ton of cement produced, a ton of CO2 is emitted into the atmosphere

• Cement accounts for 9% of global CO2 emissions

• A 30-story skyscraper uses roughly ~6,000 tons of cement, which would emit the same amount of carbon as a car driving 12 million miles

Much of the current carbon emissions from cement production come from China, which has used extraordinary amounts of concrete in recent years.

China produced 4.9 billion tons of concrete in 2020 and 2021 - more than the U.S. did between 1900 and 1999!

What is Green Concrete?

Green concrete is a type of concrete designed to be less environmentally-harmful than traditional concrete.

Green concrete methods reduce CO2 emissions by:

• incorporating recycled materials into the concrete reduction process

• utilizing alternative ingredients to reduce concrete’s environmental impact

• Reducing the amount of CO2 emitted in the cement production process, which is a major source of carbon dioxide emissions due to the energy-intensive process of its production and the chemical reactions involved in its curing (see below)

The Inflation Reduction Act, one of President Joe Biden's landmark pieces of legislation, allocated $350M in grants and funding to help in the development and commercialization of green concrete and other “lower embodied carbon construction materials.”

Are we there yet? Green concrete is still a relatively new technology, and some companies are leading the way in the development of green concrete production techniques.

Companies like Solidia Technologies claim that their green cement mixture & curing process can cut CO2 emissions by up to 70%.

Last year, a U.S.-based company named Brimstone announced that their carbon-negative cement has the same structural integrity and chemical composition as normal cement.

The company said that their green cement is the first carbon-neutral or carbon-negative cement to meet that requirement for industrial use.

It’s alive: Another company called Biomason has even created a type of concrete called Engineered Living Marine Cement (ELMc) that includes a special kind of bacteria as its key ingredient.

The bacteria replaces cement by binding together recycled stone aggregate in a similar manner to the way that corals or seashells are created in nature.

What’s stopping Green Concrete adoption?

There are two major hurdles for the widespread adoption of green concrete:

(1) Developing green concrete production methods that are scalable and commercially-viable
(2) Actually convincing the construction industry to start using green concrete

The second part might actually be harder than the first, given the conservative nature of the construction industry.

In the U.S., more than 80% of the concrete industry is made up of smaller companies that may not have the resources or technical know-how to implement green concrete-making methods.

Plus: Humans have been using traditional concrete in buildings for literally thousands of years, so it might take some time to convince folks to try a new method.

It is possible that large companies and organizations, which have been more outspoken about adopting low-carbon building materials and techniques, could lead the way in green concrete adoption.

Georgetown University built a 12-story residence hall from low-carbon concrete in 2021, and major corporations like Microsoft and Google are starting to use green concrete for their massive data centers.

Some experts believe that the green concrete & cement industry will grow by over 12% annually by 2028.

With increased investment from the private sector, generous grants from the federal government, and further attention from scientists and researchers, it’s safe to assume that we will be hearing more about green concrete and low-carbon construction materials in the near future.

ART OF THE DAY

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Yours,
Dan