Wander With Wild Things

You stand on it, live in it, work in it, play on it, anchor things with it, and drive on it. It's concrete and it's ubiquitous and unavoidable. Its production also puts out more carbon dioxide (CO2) than the whole of the aviation industry. Ouch. That hurts even more than stubbing your toe on a block of it...

Why is it so gassy? Well, it's made from clay and limestone, both of which are usually strip mined. So you have emissions from heavy mining equipment, plus the abysmal destruction associated with strip and open pit mining, then transport to the concrete production facility. There, these materials are heated up to hellacious temperatures, producing even more CO2 during combustion.

Each ton of concrete CAUSES EMISSIONS OF 1.4 tons of CO2

That's not an equation we should accept. But getting rid of concrete...well, not such a realistic goal at the moment. Or any time in the foreseeable future.

Happily, some engineers in London jumped on the problem and came up with a new way to make concrete using some non-carbon-based materials. Not only that, but these can be processed much cooler and so require less energy to become the concrete itself.

New equation:
One ton of concrete SOAKS UP 1.1 tons of CO2

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.................that is my sigh of contentment -- are we producing this stuff worldwide yet?? Hurry up already!

Check it out at the creators' website.