Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network.

Two firms in Boston have just laid the foundations of a large building using a zero-carbon cement mixture made in the USA. This represents one of the first real-world real-world adoptions of this technology.

Many companies are testing or subsidizing low- or zero-carbonrbon cement and concrete to reduce their carbon footprint, but few are yet using it liberally to build real structures.

Manufactured by Sublime Systems, which was just named to Fast Company Magazine’s Most Innovative Companies in Sustainability for 2024, the firm uses an electrochemical process to create the cement for ready-mix products.

At the heart of traditional Portland and other kinds of cement is its heating in a kiln, wherein calcium carbonate reacts with silica-bearing minerals to form a mixture of calcium silicates. Over a billion tonnes of cement are made annually, and cement kilns are the heart of this production process. According to The Economist, they heat the mixture to over 1,300°C and produce around 5% of all made-made carbon emissions worldwide.

By eliminating the kiln altogether, Sublime Systems has removed most emissions from the process.

Best of all, it’s currently being used in the Greater Boston Area. Boston Sand & Gravel is supplying Turner Construction Co. with ready-mix cement containing Sublime Systems’ product to form the mud mat of a large building.

“It’s going to be in that building for decades to come,” Sublime Systems’ CEO, Leah Ellis, told Engineering News Record.

“It really was the culmination of a lot of effort to see it not just being done for testing’s sake, but actually, replacing cement that would otherwise have been the carbon-intensive variety.”

Along with reducing the carbon emissions budget of that new building, the construction has validated that several critical targets of Sublime Systems’ product have been met: the product was transported to the site in a ready-mix concrete truck like normal, maintained malleability during transit, was poured out of the concrete truck and into a hose, and the hose was able to deliver it to the setting where it stuck and hardened—all exactly like traditional cement.

“In the grand scheme of things, it was, really, very boring for construction,” David Robb, a Turner estimator and the preconstruction manager on the Boston-area project, told ENR. “But a huge step in terms of our embodied carbon reduction goals that we’re striving toward in the future here at Turner.”

Government money, as well as private investment, has been pouring into Sublime Systems’ which seems poised to lead a great revolution in cement by building its first full-scale, dedicated manufacturing facility in Holyoke, Mass.

The good news in this article is that 5% of worldwide carbon emissions have the potential tto be reduced to zero without sacrificing the quality of construction projects. Today’s JohnKu talks about obscure carbon footprints. I hope you have a lovely weekend.

Concrete by John W.Howell © 2024

Who would have thought that,

The concrete process would yield . . .

Large carbon savings

Wishing you all a peaceful Good Friday

Today’s good news comes from the Good News Network

A community on the Loire in France has come up with a solar-powered idea that will clear two hurdles in a single leap.

The town of Saint-Joachim is located near the Brière marsh, a peat bog that becomes easily inundated with water. The local graveyard rests at 0 feet above sea level, and standing water has become a major problem.

The mayor eventually proposed covering the graveyard to divert the rainwater into catch tanks to water the grass around the cemetery and nearby sporting complex in the dry summer months.

Solar panels—clear, see-through ones, were also proposed for the otherwise basic overhead covering, with each resident receiving a letter explaining the proposal and asking for their opinion on the idea.

97% of Saint-Joachim’s residents liked the concept, and a power-sharing scheme was quickly determined whereby each resident would pay €5.00 for a share of the power generated there, which might be enough to supply around 1,000 people with enough solar power to save a couple hundred euro every year on their electric bills.

The power company in charge of the project designed an algorithm that gathers data on energy usage and determines how much each home needs to meet a fixed percentile of its overall consumption. That way, everyone, from a supermarket to the hairdresser to a single-family home, receives the same energy savings from the cemetery solar power.

The municipality will fully finance the €3.35 million ($3.6 million), 1.2-acre installation using a 7% property tax increase.

“I think it is a beautiful idea,” Éric Broquaire, a local resident and president of Brier’energie, told Euronews. “The purpose was to make it simple, to avoid someone saying, ‘Why don’t I have electricity for free?’ Everybody, even companies, will have the same level.”

The good news in this article is that a community has figured out not only a new source of energy but also a way to distribute it to the residents on a fair basis. Today’s JohnKu talks about fairness. I’m wishing you all a peaceful Easter weekend.

Fairness by John W. Howell © 2024

The distribution,

Of a scarce commodity . . .

Needs fairness also.