IIRC the --Brisbane International Airport-- runway (HUGE amount of concrete) used a carbon negative geopolymer, developed by a local university. Edit: oh it wasn't Brisbane's Airport, it was a Toowoomba airport (a town 130km inland of Brisbane. *"BWWA is built with approximately 40,000 m3 of geopolymer concrete making it the largest application of this new class of concrete in the world" [2015]* Nice
That was very well researched. Thank you Rosie. I was not aware that China is on better 57% while it seems the rest of the world is on 65%. Is this because of regulations or why can't we improve like China? Having been in Peru and walked up to the Machu Picchu but missed Puma Punku, personally I am looking to Polymer Concrete since I got to know that even the Pyramids in Egypt nearly for sure were made in this way. Trying to get more knowledge and experience but also interested in the different results and expenses between the solutions.
That was a lot of information in less than 11 minutes. So much so that I'll forgive your pun to close your intro. 😎 Having had 4 decades of time in and around the building industry I think the initial low hanging fruit is use reduction. As you pointed out there are areas that could benefit from thoughtful engineering to reduce concrete use, and there are opportunities to eliminate concrete in some areas as well. Concrete free "slabs" for on or below grade construction are viable and within the ability and skill set of almost all builders. They merely need to rethink a few steps in the process.
Really informative summary of the production process, emissions sources and potential mitigation solutions. Would be great to see more 'overview' videos like this for other hard-to-abate sectors like shipping, chemicals, aluminium, heavy-duty vehicles etc 🙂
Crude oil is compost. Compost that's been compressed, heated & stored for millions of years, none of which are necessary to use it as feedstock for oil refineries. I don't know if 80 million barrels per day of compost is available though, especially as the raw vegetable matter is stored for a few weeks while it turns into compost (though that stage may be unnecessary too).
@@alanhat5252 this is a common misconception. Very little of oil is composed of what we would typically call compost such as leaves, tree trunks etc. The majority is actually decayed algae and zooplankton or phytoplankton (minuscule animals and plants) from a very large time window roughly 250-65 million years ago. You are correct that modern technologies permit us to create different types of fuels nearly directly from various sources including plants like corn for ethanol, but engines would have to be redesigned to run 100% ethanol. Porsche has an interesting but very expensive method which uses electrolysis to split water and eventually refactor that into race fuel quality methane using atmospheric CO2. Other companies are using bioreactors to induce production of methane or similar from algae, but all of these methods don’t scale very well and would not be sufficient to power all the vehicles in use today.
Keep your eyes peeled for aluminium! Should be ready to release next week. Shipping and chemicals are on the list, and for heavy vehicles the closest I did was this livestream with David Cebon on trucking ruclips.net/user/livefkbcZ-UzOso
An excellent review. One point that seems to have been missed: much of the CO2 driven off in lime production (calcination) is re-absorbed by the cement, just over the ~ 100 yr timeframe, so not fast enough., but carbon neutral over the long term- so the real issue is the energy, not really the calcining..Alternative cementitious materials, wiser use of cement, alternatives TO concrete for above-grade construction, electric heating in calcination, biofuels for clinkering, and CCS...they're all needed. Note one thing missing here: hydrogen. I don't think there's really a role for hydrogen in cement production because the clinkering kilns need a radiant flame- they don't even like burning gas, they'd prefer coal. Hydrogen is definitely capable of generating the required heat (at tremendous cost) but isn't a perfect fit. Biogas methane with the addition of biochar is a better fit there.
Seems like an imperfect CO2 sink.. wonder if the 100yr timeline has an effect? And seems logical that only x% of the volume would capture CO2 (exposed). AND we would have to make sure all buildings remain in use over 100 years…. With all inefficiencies we might end up wirh 15-20% of the original CO2 captured … changing materials sounds better
Thanks for the great video. Love your channel, I watch it regularly. Mass timber can replace concrete in so many. applications from buildings to bridges. It is great to get to zero emissions concrete but that doesn't solve the problem that it is a finite resource. Keep up the great videos!!
These video's are really well made. Easy to follow and not pandering to whatever crowd it's trying to reach. We really need this for a responsible transition. Well done, Girl!
Albert Bates, co-author of "Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth", is developing a process to add up to 20% of biochar to bitumen for road surfaces. Biochar, as the book describes, also has a role for improving concrete. This meshes with Rosie's first solutions point to "use less of it" and require performance standards instead of requiring a set amount of cement.
I talked about biochar a little bit in my CCUS video, and have been meaning to come back to it as a topic for its own video. So many topics on the list! ruclips.net/video/KpGvHpB7SQ0/видео.html
Thank you Rosie for all the excellent information on your channel. Just one comment, on one of your videos you were somewhat puzzled by the use of ebikes. I live in a very hilly part of the world and which meant any trip on a normal bike is a sweaty task. I wanted a mode of transport that allowed me to pop around town without breaking a sweat and that was an ebike. Best purchase I have ever made, it allows me to get out and about, run errands, small shopping trips etc, without going near my car and without needing a shower everytime I take it out. Ans as a bonus I also discovered that I am getting fitter despite it being an ebike and overtime reducing the level of assist I need from my ebike. It has become our second car greatly reducing any short trips we would have taken (5km ) and even some of the longer ones (40k). I would highly recommend them to anyone wanting to reduce the time they spend in their cars, but are not fit enough or have challenging geographic location for a normal bike.
I think the usual issues applies, current standard practice is cheap and easy, well developed, known and trusted, and, it's a pretty powerful industry. We could replace a significant part of the concrete we use with wood, we can make wood constructions resistant to things like fire, fungi and pests. Building with sustainably produced wood locks that carbon for the lifetime of that building, at least. The carbon content of dry wood is typically higher than that of CO2. Humidity used to be a severe issue for wood buildings in year round warm climates that weren't very dry, and very dry areas usually don't have a lot of fast growing trees. Wood definitely has limitations, it's typically not useful for foundations, or constructions in water, but that doesn't mean we can't use it where it is about as good as, or better than concrete. Wood have some practical advantages over concrete, it's much more insulating, also lighter for the same strength, and unlike concrete, acid rain dosen't dissolve wood. Increased CO2-levels will decrease pH of rain, this is already an issue in some areas, not a huge issue, but with increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere it can become a serious issue in some cases/areas.
A lot of building codes have material requirements instead of performance requirements for the amount of concrete to protect the steel reinforcement. You have a core of steel-reinforced concrete on the inside that is actually load-bearing, which is surrounded by unreinforced concrete to protect the steel from water intrusion and rusting, so reducing concrete usage for a given structure is more about preventing water intrusion rusting the steel reinforcement. The most promising technique that's easy to scale tomorrow is switching from rebar to chopped-up steel fibers mixed into slabs that prevent the concrete from cracking so water can't get in. That allows you to reduce the floor slab thickness by 40%. I think steel or polymer fibers mixed in as a supplement to traditional rebar can provide a similar benefit for beams and columns. You can also sidestep the problem with some geopolymers that are inherently completely waterproof. The other great way to reduce concrete usage is switching to alternative materials. For buildings, using engineered wood instead of reinforced concrete for either the whole structure for short buildings or just the floor slabs for tall ones dramatically reduces concrete usage, and reduces building weight, labor, and construction time too. Civil construction tends to already use reinforced earth instead of concrete wherever possible because it's cheaper and the scale is so huge, so I don't know how much more substitution exists on that side of concrete usage.
@@koyamamoto5933 the plastic fiber reinforcement isn't structural since most plastics aren't very strong, it just reduces cracking and spalling, which protects the structural steel rebar from water and reduces damage from thermal cycling. recycled thermoplastic plastic might work if you can spin it fine enough.
@@thamiordragonheart8682 recycled polyester (2 litre bottles etc) can be spun fine enough that individual strands aren't visible to the naked eye but that introduces problems like silicosis.
@@koyamamoto5933 plastic reinforced concrete is possible but works in a very different way to steel reinforcement - you can make car springs out of it!
I work with slags, and GGBFS, which can replace GP Cement is already being used at about 40% of the concrete binder blend and can be higher, up to 100% such as in some geoploymer blends. Additionally, there is a bunch of good research going into if BOFS or other steel slags can be used to both capture/sequester carbon and provide a cementitious material. As you say, blast furnaces are likely to be phased out and the newer technologies are not mature enough to know if the byproducts will be useful for cement, but we have a couple of decades before this (at least) where we can act based on current technology. The steel slags side of things is likely to hang around for much longer and it's showing good promise to supplement cement while also sequestering CO2
Theres a couple of companies developing very high temperature electric heat using turbines to compress some inert gasses, I remember seeing a couple of names on IEA page about emissions from concrete
Awesome video. Whenever I talk about climate change with people, especially those interested, I try to draw focus to these silent killers. It's been awhile since I've heard any progress updates so this video was very appreciated :)
It is great to hear the optimism of this survey of what _could_ be done in an industry with such feet of clay that it is resisting any change to its massive momentum of continuing to expand the fossil emissions it creates, and such duplicity that it greenwashes with every word when it speaks of its plans at all. Geopolymer and sequestration of aggregates are cement's two great hopes in a world that needs everything to become net carbon negative, and rapidly -- at least 2% of today's level less fossil emission per month down to zero by 2030 to avoid Lahaina repeating over and over again. Unlike Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and most other cements, geopolymer (alkali-activated metakaolin) tolerates charcoal (or 'biochar') as an aggregating material well, and can be made substantially lighter and better insulating concrete with little loss of strength, cheaply. This is a good way to sequester the wood waste from all those trillion trees the world needs to plant by 2060 to prevent the trees from decaying into methane. While carbon curing has a nice sound to it, the present practice is for governments to subsidize carbon cure cement that otherwise would never have been produced, thereby creating fifty times as much CO2 emissions from fossil (which all limestone is). In reality, carbon cure is a dead end: all cement eventually cures over time, so the gain of 'carbon cure' is temporary and dubious. Building out of engineered wood, however? That's as good as it sounds. Especially increasing population density of cities with engineered wood buildings in walkable neighborhoods. Keep up the great work.
Hi Rosie. There’s another way of reducing CO2 from concrete. In many cases, it’s possible to replace the steel rebar with basaltic rebar. BR can be produced with renewable energy and basalt is as you know, the most abundant mineral on earth.
Wow! Great explanation of concrete and cement and how the production of cement emits CO2. Nice to know that there are at least some promising solutions on the horizon for reducing that CO2.
It's not just cement that is an issue. 180 litres of water are used to make a metre cube of concrete. 47% of this water remains held in the concrete. Fifty billion tonnes of aggregate are extracted from beds, banks and floodplains of rivers and lakes. Vietnam’s Mekong Delta is disappearing. We need to reduce the amount of concrete used. Have a look at a product called Stratadune that uses a lot less concrete.
9:47 - there's a process by ThyssenKrupp that heats kiln using methane burned in oxygen produced on-situ instead of air, making CO2 much more concentrated in effluent gas and so easier to capture. After a series of pilot plants, the plan is underway for an industrial scale installation in Našice, Croatia. The captured CO2 will be stored in nearby saline aquifer.
I work in low-carbon cement research. There's one clarification I'd like to add to a mostly good explainer: the limestone>lime calcination works essentially in reverse over the service life of a concrete structure; CO2 - about 30% of emissions used to make the concrete - is absorbed by the concrete over its life (also: geopolymers use a lit of industrial chemicals, which use enormous amounts of energy- the emissions are not in the cement, but the ingredients). Also, CO2 injection is likely to have unintended consequences on the longevity of concrete structures. A further way to reduce total cement use is to have longer lasting concrete structures (ones that don't need to be torn down after 30 years). There's a lot of research and innovation in this area, so watch this space!
Your breakdown was awesome as we have come to expect. I have what may seem a "silly question"; how much CO2 is lost to the atmosphere via soda pop? I mean it has to bee almost total, as when you open the container and the pressure drops to atmospheric, and bubbles of CO2 start rising furiously. This and few other ongoing situations make it very hard to see "serious" in a lot of both US politicians as well as world wide. We literally have people canning and selling CO2 infused drinks by the millions. That has to be adding to that gosh awful total. And even if we stop this, carbon capture of all the "trash" we can get out of our air is good for every living organism on today's earth. I can also see some sort of world organization to determine which countries are not abiding and announce sanctions in the trade areas. Otherwise, I don't see success for any of us.
great summary, though I would add Rondo energy to your list of heat solutions. They've been able to generate very high temperatures using electric heat batteries - not quite to Cement heat yet, but they are working on it.
Love this! Made it so much easier to understand sometimes dense engineering topics for those of us with a passing interest in learning things like this!
Rosie, please also talk to First Graphene, an Aussie listed company in Perth but the CEO Michael Bell is in Singapore -- the Graphene scientists are in Manchester
Establish a global, escalating, predictable carbon price (call it a "dumping fee") and watch all of the most practical new ideas accelerate. Decisions at every level need to be based on carbon impact.
I had this discussion with my eco issues professor in a tutorial , he was excited about the possibility of using magnesium carbonate for carbon storage but I couldn’t find any large scale magnesium ores that are not carbonate based minerals then neither could he.
Kind of brings up an interesting issue.. In studying cement from ancient Rome a fairly recent discovery regarding its strength and ability to last has been shown to be that it is, I don't remember the exact term, bit it's something like, "hot pored". This means that the Valcium Carbonate is still in the process of conversion, unlike Clinker, and it actually develops crystallized bits inside the material. When cracks form and water finds its way in the water dissolves these crystals, which then redeposit in the cracks, as it seeps back out, sealing the cravk and restrengthening the material. So... do any of the alternatives exhibit this trait, voukd be made to, etc., or are any alternatives we develop going to have the literal same problem as, ironically, all modern cement, in that they cannot self heal, and are thus actually less structurally sound over the long term?
Ms. Rossi, you have a couple decades of experience. You very young lady. You start when you were 10? Love your videos. Very well put, very informative.
Very good technology overview. Another way to reduce world wide cement production and CO2 emissions: use laminated wood as in CLT or GLULAM for buildings upto 10 stories high. Trees capture CO2, so there is a double benefit!
Recycled plastic -in-situ raft slab form-liners can be used in on-ground slabs to reduce the amount of concrete used in these applications. It can according to supplier data reduce the overall cost of am in-situ slab by 15-20%. As per your video when you add this to a process from Carbon Cure you are potentially looking at reductions in concrete volume. These two reductions might go some way to balancing out the increased in production cost of the new concrete mixtures thus allowing for a faster transition away from existing concrete mixtures.
Add in that modern concrete doesn’t last. Roman concrete last thousands of years, our concrete is good for a century or so. A lot of early 20th century classic buildings are nearing the concrete expiration date…
Thanks very much for the informative video. Seems like this process is in some ways the opposite of mineral carbonation? Can calcium carbonate be used more directly in building materials?
Neocrete seems to be looking hopeful as an additive to reduce cement quantities without needing a fossil fuel source. Sources from volcanoes in NZ I believe.
Should be called Paleocrete: Pozzolanas such as Santorin earth were used in the Eastern Mediterranean since 500-400 BC. Although pioneered by the ancient Greeks, it was the Romans who eventually fully developed the potential of lime-pozzolan pastes as binder phase in Roman concrete used for buildings and underwater construction. Vitruvius speaks of four types of pozzolana: black, white, grey, and red, all of which can be found in the volcanic areas of Italy, such as Naples. Typically it was very thoroughly mixed two-to-one with lime just prior to mixing with water. The Roman port at Cosa was built of pozzolana-lime concrete that was poured under water, apparently using a long tube to carefully lay it up without allowing sea water to mix with it. The three piers are still visible today, with the underwater portions in generally excellent condition even after more than 2100 years. -Wikipedia
Another option worth considering as a cement alternative is large-scale wood construction, which not only avoids concrete and steel production but also acts as a long-term carbon sink. The kind of constructed wood materials they use like cross-laminated timber (CLT) can actually be just as fire resistant as steel and concrete. ruclips.net/video/1N0tdEc4oTw/видео.html
I don't like all those concrete skyscrapers to begin with. Perhaps we could build mathematical structures which are strong without needing much material? And other materials should be used. Perhaps fiberglass sheets and a lot of "sticky polymer" could be used. Perhaps going in the ground could be an option too since the structure would need less support there. That would save on heating and cooling too. I always feel too that renovation should be preferred but now they find it easier to smash everything down. That works easier. Yes, but we need interlocking panels etc to cover old walls etc..
The incentives to develop low and negative processes in making concrete don’t match well to the dependencies on wasteful methods. So that’s bad. This I believe is why the funds for developing zero emission concrete methods and materials stays nonexistent. Hopefully, the anonymous folks working on the problem don’t run out of funding. The people who are accountable for the crazy amount of CO2 released are making a lot of money for what they do.
Portland Cement has been on the market less than 200 years (1840s) but cement & concrete have been in use since before the Roman era. Which type of cement is popular at any one time is purely fashion.
I learned something here too. Thank you. You finished by saying we need political initiatives to make things work. I agree. The cheapest way for all is taxes on all carbon that may end up in the atmosphere. But many resists that in a very dogmatic if not religious way - what can we do?
The content and information you provide in your videos is excellent. However, I am afraid the editing of the soundtrack annoys me. The issue I have is that the gap between sound bytes (I can't think how better to describe it) is too short. I find it irritating when transitions between statements is not sufficient for you to take a breath. I complained to the ABC about this, then stopped watching. I don't know whether anyone else finds this irritating, but I do and neither you nor your team will know this unless a wheel squeaks.
5:00 can someone explain to me how turning cement back into limestone is supposed to make it stronger and sequester co2? There's nothing wrong with using limestone as a building material as we have for thousands of years, but this kind of marketing looks like an investment scam more than anything else.
This entire analysis seems to ignore the latest science that when curing concrete re-absorbs a good portion (25-60%) of CO2 released from the limestone. If we can capture the CO2 during production it seems like, concrete could become a useful carbon sink.
Christ I wouldn't use Chinese standards as an example of good concrete, half their infrastructure crumbles after a few years. Although it's more likely an issue with manufacturers not sticking to that standard, it'd definitely need testing.
They do reach market, Portland Cement itself was patented in 1824 & current variants weren't available till the 1840s yet the Romans used a very similar & plainly long-lasting cement centuries before. What we're waiting for is fashion to change & that could easily be encouraged by for instance taxation.
Cement is so cheap that pretty much any alternative seems expensive. I think it was always going to be one of hte last climate techs to go mainstream. Wind, solar, EVs etc are competitive on price alone so they don't need as much effort to roll them out as it will take to get rid of traditional cement.
@@EngineeringwithRosie B1M & others are watching the market for wooden buildings grow using "engineered timber" & low-rise adobe is still viable (the cities in Yemen are marvels) & can be 3d-printed.
MCi is doing it already though, it just needs scaling, to me CCU makes most sense, we should use the carbon in the atmosphere directly as a building material, perfect use of sequestration.
We still don't know how to make fusion work, while we already know how most of these solutions she mentioned work and we're using them in a small scale.
I’ve been getting told about how fusion is just around the corner for 50 years now. We weren’t even talking about CO2 or climate change 50 years ago, and I wasn’t hearing about decarbonizing concrete until the past 5 years or so.
Perhaps you would explain what is the connection between supercritical CO2 and storing CO2 which has not been cooled in rock caverns etc which has already been successfully done in for instance the Sleipner field. Cost is an issue, since historically releasing CO2 has been regarded as a freebie, but AFAIK has nothing at all to do with supercriticality.
@@davidmartin3947 I wouldn't be crowing too much about Sleipner. CO2 is Injected into the rock pores, not caverns, and to do this requires 10s to 100s Mpa. That's when supercritical CO2 becomes an issue. The expense and short duty time of the materials required to operate under these conditions makes it all too hard. Ask Chevron about their CCS nightmare at Gorgon.
@@3rdrock Since posts get killed if links to references are provided, discussion at any depth is not really possible. But on the DOE site if one uses CO@ storage and supercriticality as search terms, supercritical storage is just one way of doing it, which does economise on the volumes needed, so why you should use potential issues with doing it that way to dismiss the whole field is mysterious. That is not to say that there are not other potential issues with other techniques, but the one you have put front and centre just does not apply, so it seems that you are improperly generalising, presumably because you don't much fancy carbon storage. I would agree that the possibility has often been used to justify 'carrying on regardless' with massively emmitting fossil fuel projects, but that does not justify making improper arguments against the tech, as there are quite enough sound arguments which can be made against reckless continuance of fossil fuel extraction with CCS held up as a fig leaf.
@@davidmartin3947 Your presumption has some truth in it but my position is based on actual experience in CO2 geosequestration. Like you say, it works but I am pointing out that the devil is in the detail and that detail makes the process extremely difficult and expensive.
@@3rdrock I address the points presented, not the level of expertise of those who raise them. You sought to argue that sequestration was impractical due to supercriticality. Since in many or most cases supercriticality is not used, this in no way rules out other methods of storage, even assuming that your objection is a complete show stopper for supercritical storage. And regarding levels of expertise, there are plenty of eminently qualified folk who would disagree with your position, one of whom posts on GreenCarCongress and I have had the pleasure to have been in discussion on line with. Maybe CCS can't work, although there are umpteen forms of it including for instance ocean storage, but your arguments in no way prove it. Just for the record, I intensely dislike the use of the notion of carbon storage as an excuse to carry on emitting, and the scope and cost of storage is far from clear. But your attempt to rule it out 'from first principles' in all variants is not legitimate, and you have presented no arguments at all which in any way substantiate your position. Your critique of supercritical storage is, if not quite irrelevant, at any rate inapplicable to most methods of CCS and in no way justifies your sweeping complete dismissal.
Nice analysis of cement making. Why do you not propose Nuclear electricity generation as a solution. It is a proven base load 24/7 supply, proven technology and is developing rapidly as an “off the shelf” energy solution.
The point of “electrify everything” is to decouple our energy consumption from our energy creation/transmission/storage. So it wouldn’t matter if it’s coming from renewables, batteries, nuclear, or even existing fossil fuel plants. Nuclear can be the “solution” in this by being less expensive than other sources. The problem is, nuclear is MORE expensive. Traditional nuclear can’t compete on cost. 4th gen nuclear has been focused on safety rather than on cost, and is 20 years away from even starting to scale enough to matter, even on the happiest of happy paths. And since renewables + storage solves the pressing CO2 problem, it would be incredibly hard to politically justify investing billions (or trillions) in nuclear and deliberately holding back renewables that are already inexpensive and effective.
Why do we need concrete, build using plastic (recycled) instead... The house I am currently in has no concrete, it is made from bricks (clay) with lime mortar. I walked along a 1Km path yesterday, over very wet ground, path was constructed from recycled milk bottles (HDPE plastic), including the structural beams that hold it up above the water.
You are a bit naïve. Highways, commercial buildings, bridges and dams are where most of the cement is used. While some substitution in buildings is possible, it creates new problems. Wooden buildings can burn, insects can eat them and they can rot. Clay materials have no tensile strength and absorb water.
@@alberthartl8885 None of the highways near me are made of concrete, only use of concrete seems to be for bridges and drainage. There is a new bridge being built near me, about 1Km long, if it had been built 10 years ago then it would have been almost entirely concrete, but it is actually being made of steel, interestingly unpainted steel, it is starting off life rusty, and that is how it will stay! Given that steel can be zero carbon, problem solved. As for dams, I walked across one earlier today, didn't use concrete except for the spillway, rest was a heap of stone, I think with a clay core, and that is one of the biggest in the country. I'm not convinced wooden buildings are sensible here, too wet, which is why I suggested plastic, which we already use for our windows, gutters, roofs. Yes, we have been using a huge amount of concrete, especially in cities, but I'm not convinced that we actually need it.
Carbon Capture is the biggest scam of all the greenwashing stuff. All you do is moving the problem from now to later while creating more emissions to deal with these.
What's the total cost? Long-term impact of these substitutes? How much carbon does an average volcano release annually? How many active volcanoes? Should we consider stopping them?
... and reduce the construction of buildings made with concrete? Humans over many thousands of years have proven that we can live anywhere, so going vertical with concrete does not even need to be. There are billions of acres and hectares of land that could be developed still (and not wasted as national and state parks and the like.
None of this is coming at scale any time soon and even if some of these techniques were to be adapted in the US, the US accounts for less than 4% of the world's cement production...
Even if we recycle concrete 100% engineers like u will still invoke the co2 global warming hype. FYI, co2 is a food source for everything that’s green. Instead of reporting on cement to control and or limit co2 we should try to reforest the deserts, if global warming is a thing other than Greta’s slogan.
Why do greenhouse farmer buy a lot of CO2? What would happen if they reduced CO2 levels in their greenhouses? What will happen when we miraculously managed to override the CO2 reserves exchange between soil, ocean and air, and reduced prevalence in the air? Who shall we nominate to be the first billion to die of starvation, on top of those already doing so, TODAY? How lovely to sit on our Western high horses and worry not about those less lucky to be able to grab the food away from others during global shortage and price escalation.
@@bernhardschmalhofer855 Why wait until it's too late and now invest so much in forcing people to reduce CO2 emissions at personal level, in a way that reduces average discretionary spending especially for the masses? Why not just burn coal today? Burning Maui, someone surely is benefiting from that, but I don't vote for that kind of destruction.
IIRC the --Brisbane International Airport-- runway (HUGE amount of concrete) used a carbon negative geopolymer, developed by a local university.
Edit: oh it wasn't Brisbane's Airport, it was a Toowoomba airport (a town 130km inland of Brisbane.
*"BWWA is built with approximately 40,000 m3 of geopolymer concrete making it the largest application of this new class of concrete in the world" [2015]* Nice
It's not the only one. Calgary also has a geopolymer airport.
70% cheaper than OPC.
I didn't know that! If I ever fly into Toowoomba (or Calgary) I will look down and remember to be impressed 😊😊
There's been one in South Africa for a decade, too.
ruclips.net/video/wArEbfC91m0/видео.html
@@bartroberts1514calgary isnt geopolymer, they used carboncure.
Many thanks for such a concise summary of the state of low-emission concrete.
Keep up the great work!
That was very well researched. Thank you Rosie.
I was not aware that China is on better 57% while it seems the rest of the world is on 65%. Is this because of regulations or why can't we improve like China?
Having been in Peru and walked up to the Machu Picchu but missed Puma Punku, personally I am looking to Polymer Concrete since I got to know that even the Pyramids in Egypt nearly for sure were made in this way. Trying to get more knowledge and experience but also interested in the different results and expenses between the solutions.
That was a lot of information in less than 11 minutes. So much so that I'll forgive your pun to close your intro. 😎 Having had 4 decades of time in and around the building industry I think the initial low hanging fruit is use reduction. As you pointed out there are areas that could benefit from thoughtful engineering to reduce concrete use, and there are opportunities to eliminate concrete in some areas as well. Concrete free "slabs" for on or below grade construction are viable and within the ability and skill set of almost all builders. They merely need to rethink a few steps in the process.
Really informative summary of the production process, emissions sources and potential mitigation solutions. Would be great to see more 'overview' videos like this for other hard-to-abate sectors like shipping, chemicals, aluminium, heavy-duty vehicles etc 🙂
Crude oil is compost.
Compost that's been compressed, heated & stored for millions of years, none of which are necessary to use it as feedstock for oil refineries. I don't know if 80 million barrels per day of compost is available though, especially as the raw vegetable matter is stored for a few weeks while it turns into compost (though that stage may be unnecessary too).
@@alanhat5252 this is a common misconception. Very little of oil is composed of what we would typically call compost such as leaves, tree trunks etc. The majority is actually decayed algae and zooplankton or phytoplankton (minuscule animals and plants) from a very large time window roughly 250-65 million years ago. You are correct that modern technologies permit us to create different types of fuels nearly directly from various sources including plants like corn for ethanol, but engines would have to be redesigned to run 100% ethanol. Porsche has an interesting but very expensive method which uses electrolysis to split water and eventually refactor that into race fuel quality methane using atmospheric CO2.
Other companies are using bioreactors to induce production of methane or similar from algae, but all of these methods don’t scale very well and would not be sufficient to power all the vehicles in use today.
Keep your eyes peeled for aluminium! Should be ready to release next week. Shipping and chemicals are on the list, and for heavy vehicles the closest I did was this livestream with David Cebon on trucking ruclips.net/user/livefkbcZ-UzOso
Great stuff! I always learn something from your videos.
An excellent review. One point that seems to have been missed: much of the CO2 driven off in lime production (calcination) is re-absorbed by the cement, just over the ~ 100 yr timeframe, so not fast enough., but carbon neutral over the long term- so the real issue is the energy, not really the calcining..Alternative cementitious materials, wiser use of cement, alternatives TO concrete for above-grade construction, electric heating in calcination, biofuels for clinkering, and CCS...they're all needed. Note one thing missing here: hydrogen. I don't think there's really a role for hydrogen in cement production because the clinkering kilns need a radiant flame- they don't even like burning gas, they'd prefer coal. Hydrogen is definitely capable of generating the required heat (at tremendous cost) but isn't a perfect fit. Biogas methane with the addition of biochar is a better fit there.
Thanks for adding those extra points. Does cement really reabsorb ALL of the CO2 from lime production eventually? Even in the middle of a thick slab?
Seems like an imperfect CO2 sink.. wonder if the 100yr timeline has an effect? And seems logical that only x% of the volume would capture CO2 (exposed).
AND we would have to make sure all buildings remain in use over 100 years…. With all inefficiencies we might end up wirh 15-20% of the original CO2 captured … changing materials sounds better
Thanks for the great video. Love your channel, I watch it regularly. Mass timber can replace concrete in so many. applications from buildings to bridges. It is great to get to zero emissions concrete but that doesn't solve the problem that it is a finite resource. Keep up the great videos!!
outstanding video. well explained, infromative and clear. 👍
These video's are really well made. Easy to follow and not pandering to whatever crowd it's trying to reach. We really need this for a responsible transition. Well done, Girl!
This is top-quality journalism, we need these principles to spread around the world, voters cannot make informed choices without it.
the video quality and production really went up. congrats!
Albert Bates, co-author of "Burn: Using Fire to Cool the Earth", is developing a process to add up to 20% of biochar to bitumen for road surfaces. Biochar, as the book describes, also has a role for improving concrete. This meshes with Rosie's first solutions point to "use less of it" and require performance standards instead of requiring a set amount of cement.
I talked about biochar a little bit in my CCUS video, and have been meaning to come back to it as a topic for its own video. So many topics on the list! ruclips.net/video/KpGvHpB7SQ0/видео.html
@@EngineeringwithRosie can you bring someone in to explain the likely reaction of the oil industry to that, please?
Sublime has the best name. Until someone gets a viable, scaled manufactory, I'll stick with the best name ^.^
I agree one million percent.
Loving the set. And cool to see the progress made in production. And as always informative and good content
Thank you Rosie for all the excellent information on your channel. Just one comment, on one of your videos you were somewhat puzzled by the use of ebikes. I live in a very hilly part of the world and which meant any trip on a normal bike is a sweaty task. I wanted a mode of transport that allowed me to pop around town without breaking a sweat and that was an ebike. Best purchase I have ever made, it allows me to get out and about, run errands, small shopping trips etc, without going near my car and without needing a shower everytime I take it out. Ans as a bonus I also discovered that I am getting fitter despite it being an ebike and overtime reducing the level of assist I need from my ebike. It has become our second car greatly reducing any short trips we would have taken (5km ) and even some of the longer ones (40k). I would highly recommend them to anyone wanting to reduce the time they spend in their cars, but are not fit enough or have challenging geographic location for a normal bike.
I think the usual issues applies, current standard practice is cheap and easy, well developed, known and trusted, and, it's a pretty powerful industry.
We could replace a significant part of the concrete we use with wood, we can make wood constructions resistant to things like fire, fungi and pests. Building with sustainably produced wood locks that carbon for the lifetime of that building, at least. The carbon content of dry wood is typically higher than that of CO2.
Humidity used to be a severe issue for wood buildings in year round warm climates that weren't very dry, and very dry areas usually don't have a lot of fast growing trees.
Wood definitely has limitations, it's typically not useful for foundations, or constructions in water, but that doesn't mean we can't use it where it is about as good as, or better than concrete. Wood have some practical advantages over concrete, it's much more insulating, also lighter for the same strength, and unlike concrete, acid rain dosen't dissolve wood. Increased CO2-levels will decrease pH of rain, this is already an issue in some areas, not a huge issue, but with increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere it can become a serious issue in some cases/areas.
A lot of building codes have material requirements instead of performance requirements for the amount of concrete to protect the steel reinforcement. You have a core of steel-reinforced concrete on the inside that is actually load-bearing, which is surrounded by unreinforced concrete to protect the steel from water intrusion and rusting, so reducing concrete usage for a given structure is more about preventing water intrusion rusting the steel reinforcement.
The most promising technique that's easy to scale tomorrow is switching from rebar to chopped-up steel fibers mixed into slabs that prevent the concrete from cracking so water can't get in. That allows you to reduce the floor slab thickness by 40%. I think steel or polymer fibers mixed in as a supplement to traditional rebar can provide a similar benefit for beams and columns. You can also sidestep the problem with some geopolymers that are inherently completely waterproof.
The other great way to reduce concrete usage is switching to alternative materials. For buildings, using engineered wood instead of reinforced concrete for either the whole structure for short buildings or just the floor slabs for tall ones dramatically reduces concrete usage, and reduces building weight, labor, and construction time too. Civil construction tends to already use reinforced earth instead of concrete wherever possible because it's cheaper and the scale is so huge, so I don't know how much more substitution exists on that side of concrete usage.
Makes me wonder how effective chopped/modified waste plastic would be for rebar replacement. Side benefit might be less concern about water intrusion.
@@koyamamoto5933 the plastic fiber reinforcement isn't structural since most plastics aren't very strong, it just reduces cracking and spalling, which protects the structural steel rebar from water and reduces damage from thermal cycling. recycled thermoplastic plastic might work if you can spin it fine enough.
@@thamiordragonheart8682 recycled polyester (2 litre bottles etc) can be spun fine enough that individual strands aren't visible to the naked eye but that introduces problems like silicosis.
"B1M" channel on RUclips (the largest construction engineering channel) has been looking at engineered timber buildings for a while
@@koyamamoto5933 plastic reinforced concrete is possible but works in a very different way to steel reinforcement - you can make car springs out of it!
Thank you for this comprehensive yet succinct review.
Thanks Rosie, I’m hooked! You have a new subscriber and a better informed consumer!
I work with slags, and GGBFS, which can replace GP Cement is already being used at about 40% of the concrete binder blend and can be higher, up to 100% such as in some geoploymer blends.
Additionally, there is a bunch of good research going into if BOFS or other steel slags can be used to both capture/sequester carbon and provide a cementitious material.
As you say, blast furnaces are likely to be phased out and the newer technologies are not mature enough to know if the byproducts will be useful for cement, but we have a couple of decades before this (at least) where we can act based on current technology. The steel slags side of things is likely to hang around for much longer and it's showing good promise to supplement cement while also sequestering CO2
Theres a couple of companies developing very high temperature electric heat using turbines to compress some inert gasses, I remember seeing a couple of names on IEA page about emissions from concrete
Excellent work again Rosie, thanks.
Awesome video. Whenever I talk about climate change with people, especially those interested, I try to draw focus to these silent killers. It's been awhile since I've heard any progress updates so this video was very appreciated :)
Cradled by concrete
Is my band name
It is great to hear the optimism of this survey of what _could_ be done in an industry with such feet of clay that it is resisting any change to its massive momentum of continuing to expand the fossil emissions it creates, and such duplicity that it greenwashes with every word when it speaks of its plans at all.
Geopolymer and sequestration of aggregates are cement's two great hopes in a world that needs everything to become net carbon negative, and rapidly -- at least 2% of today's level less fossil emission per month down to zero by 2030 to avoid Lahaina repeating over and over again. Unlike Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) and most other cements, geopolymer (alkali-activated metakaolin) tolerates charcoal (or 'biochar') as an aggregating material well, and can be made substantially lighter and better insulating concrete with little loss of strength, cheaply. This is a good way to sequester the wood waste from all those trillion trees the world needs to plant by 2060 to prevent the trees from decaying into methane.
While carbon curing has a nice sound to it, the present practice is for governments to subsidize carbon cure cement that otherwise would never have been produced, thereby creating fifty times as much CO2 emissions from fossil (which all limestone is). In reality, carbon cure is a dead end: all cement eventually cures over time, so the gain of 'carbon cure' is temporary and dubious.
Building out of engineered wood, however? That's as good as it sounds. Especially increasing population density of cities with engineered wood buildings in walkable neighborhoods.
Keep up the great work.
Hi Rosie. There’s another way of reducing CO2 from concrete. In many cases, it’s possible to replace the steel rebar with basaltic rebar. BR can be produced with renewable energy and basalt is as you know, the most abundant mineral on earth.
Great video again!
Wow! Great explanation of concrete and cement and how the production of cement emits CO2. Nice to know that there are at least some promising solutions on the horizon for reducing that CO2.
It's not just cement that is an issue.
180 litres of water are used to make a metre cube of concrete. 47% of this water remains held in the concrete.
Fifty billion tonnes of aggregate are extracted from beds, banks and floodplains of rivers and lakes. Vietnam’s Mekong Delta is disappearing.
We need to reduce the amount of concrete used. Have a look at a product called Stratadune that uses a lot less concrete.
Cool. Need to push on multiple fronts.
9:47 - there's a process by ThyssenKrupp that heats kiln using methane burned in oxygen produced on-situ instead of air, making CO2 much more concentrated in effluent gas and so easier to capture. After a series of pilot plants, the plan is underway for an industrial scale installation in Našice, Croatia. The captured CO2 will be stored in nearby saline aquifer.
I work in low-carbon cement research. There's one clarification I'd like to add to a mostly good explainer: the limestone>lime calcination works essentially in reverse over the service life of a concrete structure; CO2 - about 30% of emissions used to make the concrete - is absorbed by the concrete over its life (also: geopolymers use a lit of industrial chemicals, which use enormous amounts of energy- the emissions are not in the cement, but the ingredients). Also, CO2 injection is likely to have unintended consequences on the longevity of concrete structures.
A further way to reduce total cement use is to have longer lasting concrete structures (ones that don't need to be torn down after 30 years).
There's a lot of research and innovation in this area, so watch this space!
Your breakdown was awesome as we have come to expect. I have what may seem a "silly question"; how much CO2 is lost to the atmosphere via soda pop? I mean it has to bee almost total, as when you open the container and the pressure drops to atmospheric, and bubbles of CO2 start rising furiously. This and few other ongoing situations make it very hard to see "serious" in a lot of both US politicians as well as world wide. We literally have people canning and selling CO2 infused drinks by the millions. That has to be adding to that gosh awful total. And even if we stop this, carbon capture of all the "trash" we can get out of our air is good for every living organism on today's earth. I can also see some sort of world organization to determine which countries are not abiding and announce sanctions in the trade areas. Otherwise, I don't see success for any of us.
Strawbuilding which use straw for thermal isolation panels could also be interesting in carbon negative building
Thanks for this. Excellent summary as usual covering a lot of ground with precision and keeping it real.
great summary, though I would add Rondo energy to your list of heat solutions. They've been able to generate very high temperatures using electric heat batteries - not quite to Cement heat yet, but they are working on it.
Love this! Made it so much easier to understand sometimes dense engineering topics for those of us with a passing interest in learning things like this!
Rosie, please also talk to First Graphene, an Aussie listed company in Perth but the CEO Michael Bell is in Singapore -- the Graphene scientists are in Manchester
Great in depth discussion. I would love to see a discussion on the relative amount of steel in a wind turbine and an oil well.
Establish a global, escalating, predictable carbon price (call it a "dumping fee") and watch all of the most practical new ideas accelerate. Decisions at every level need to be based on carbon impact.
What about using other materials like hempcrete for example instead?
I had this discussion with my eco issues professor in a tutorial , he was excited about the possibility of using magnesium carbonate for carbon storage but I couldn’t find any large scale magnesium ores that are not carbonate based minerals then neither could he.
Rosie, have you explored the properties of geopolymer vs Portland cement?
Kind of brings up an interesting issue.. In studying cement from ancient Rome a fairly recent discovery regarding its strength and ability to last has been shown to be that it is, I don't remember the exact term, bit it's something like, "hot pored". This means that the Valcium Carbonate is still in the process of conversion, unlike Clinker, and it actually develops crystallized bits inside the material. When cracks form and water finds its way in the water dissolves these crystals, which then redeposit in the cracks, as it seeps back out, sealing the cravk and restrengthening the material.
So... do any of the alternatives exhibit this trait, voukd be made to, etc., or are any alternatives we develop going to have the literal same problem as, ironically, all modern cement, in that they cannot self heal, and are thus actually less structurally sound over the long term?
Majority of family houses in Canada are wooden. Except for the foundations.
Hard science put simply. Thanks
You should look into CarbonCorp/C2CNT and STEP cement
Interesting, thank you.
A bit fast to follow though.
It'd be interesting to quote some biotech as Biomason (coral inspired material).
Cheers,
Ms. Rossi, you have a couple decades of experience. You very young lady. You start when you were 10?
Love your videos. Very well put, very informative.
I am 40 😊
Very good technology overview. Another way to reduce world wide cement production and CO2 emissions: use laminated wood as in CLT or GLULAM for buildings upto 10 stories high. Trees capture CO2, so there is a double benefit!
Recycled plastic -in-situ raft slab form-liners can be used in on-ground slabs to reduce the amount of concrete used in these applications. It can according to supplier data reduce the overall cost of am in-situ slab by 15-20%. As per your video when you add this to a process from Carbon Cure you are potentially looking at reductions in concrete volume. These two reductions might go some way to balancing out the increased in production cost of the new concrete mixtures thus allowing for a faster transition away from existing concrete mixtures.
God this is such high value climate content.
Thanks Rosie
Add in that modern concrete doesn’t last. Roman concrete last thousands of years, our concrete is good for a century or so. A lot of early 20th century classic buildings are nearing the concrete expiration date…
What did the Danish dictionary in the video have to say on concrete?😮
Concrete er "beton" på dansk 😀
your co2 budget should mention that when lime(CaO) cures, it converts back to CaCO3 absorbing CO2 in the process.
If cement is cured/solidified it will absorbe similar amount of CO2back from the air, is it not counted? Only when it is produced?
Thanks very much for the informative video. Seems like this process is in some ways the opposite of mineral carbonation? Can calcium carbonate be used more directly in building materials?
Thanks Rosie a great video! When cement cures it absorbs CO2 so when you look at the whole lifecycle. How much is absorbed vs emitted?
Thank you.
As with many other areas, a carbon tax is needed to make the processes viable. Cement is too cheap right now.
I wonder how the rediscovery of Roman cement recipes will affect the carbon footprint of concrete
Neocrete seems to be looking hopeful as an additive to reduce cement quantities without needing a fossil fuel source. Sources from volcanoes in NZ I believe.
Should be called Paleocrete:
Pozzolanas such as Santorin earth were used in the Eastern Mediterranean since 500-400 BC. Although pioneered by the ancient Greeks, it was the Romans who eventually fully developed the potential of lime-pozzolan pastes as binder phase in Roman concrete used for buildings and underwater construction. Vitruvius speaks of four types of pozzolana: black, white, grey, and red, all of which can be found in the volcanic areas of Italy, such as Naples. Typically it was very thoroughly mixed two-to-one with lime just prior to mixing with water. The Roman port at Cosa was built of pozzolana-lime concrete that was poured under water, apparently using a long tube to carefully lay it up without allowing sea water to mix with it. The three piers are still visible today, with the underwater portions in generally excellent condition even after more than 2100 years.
-Wikipedia
Another option worth considering as a cement alternative is large-scale wood construction, which not only avoids concrete and steel production but also acts as a long-term carbon sink. The kind of constructed wood materials they use like cross-laminated timber (CLT) can actually be just as fire resistant as steel and concrete. ruclips.net/video/1N0tdEc4oTw/видео.html
Good video, but I feel like you should have at least said something about hydrogen as a replacement in heat. Hmmm
I love your work, thanks xc
I don't like all those concrete skyscrapers to begin with. Perhaps we could build mathematical structures which are strong without needing much material? And other materials should be used. Perhaps fiberglass sheets and a lot of "sticky polymer" could be used. Perhaps going in the ground could be an option too since the structure would need less support there. That would save on heating and cooling too. I always feel too that renovation should be preferred but now they find it easier to smash everything down. That works easier. Yes, but we need interlocking panels etc to cover old walls etc..
The incentives to develop low and negative processes in making concrete don’t match well to the dependencies on wasteful methods. So that’s bad. This I believe is why the funds for developing zero emission concrete methods and materials stays nonexistent. Hopefully, the anonymous folks working on the problem don’t run out of funding. The people who are accountable for the crazy amount of CO2 released are making a lot of money for what they do.
What is the main thing preventing the scale up of magnesium-based cement?
fashion
Portland Cement has been on the market less than 200 years (1840s) but cement & concrete have been in use since before the Roman era. Which type of cement is popular at any one time is purely fashion.
I learned something here too. Thank you.
You finished by saying we need political initiatives to make things work. I agree. The cheapest way for all is taxes on all carbon that may end up in the atmosphere. But many resists that in a very dogmatic if not religious way - what can we do?
I am in a building made out of heart pine and plaster. Plaster is carbon negative because it absorbs carbon as it ages.
Really interesting, thank you. Books, wood, wind, composites, Danish?
She used to work in Denmark.
We use so much concrete that there are sand shortages too.
The content and information you provide in your videos is excellent. However, I am afraid the editing of the soundtrack annoys me.
The issue I have is that the gap between sound bytes (I can't think how better to describe it) is too short. I find it irritating when transitions between statements is not sufficient for you to take a breath.
I complained to the ABC about this, then stopped watching. I don't know whether anyone else finds this irritating, but I do and neither you nor your team will know this unless a wheel squeaks.
Agreed. Some sound deadening in the room would be nice too. It sounds like an echo chamber. Love the videos though…
But have you examined whether CO2 is actually harmful, **in any way whatsoever**?
saltxtechnology is into producing CO2 free lime
5:00 can someone explain to me how turning cement back into limestone is supposed to make it stronger and sequester co2? There's nothing wrong with using limestone as a building material as we have for thousands of years, but this kind of marketing looks like an investment scam more than anything else.
Very good video. Like so many of the ways to make our planet better, the only way to mass adoption is by making these things profitable.
3:42 Isn't that a nuclear power plant? We can argue how green it imay or may not be, but surely it isn't a fossil fuel.
This entire analysis seems to ignore the latest science that when curing concrete re-absorbs a good portion (25-60%) of CO2 released from the limestone. If we can capture the CO2 during production it seems like, concrete could become a useful carbon sink.
Christ I wouldn't use Chinese standards as an example of good concrete, half their infrastructure crumbles after a few years. Although it's more likely an issue with manufacturers not sticking to that standard, it'd definitely need testing.
The world is transforming into cement.
Very interesting but to fast for a non native English speaker. Most of the time I have to close the video half way.
The CO2 injection is surely simply speeding up the process of reabsorption of CO2 that concrete does quite a lot of anyway over its lifetime?
3:46 sorry to question your artistic choices but this camera angle feels like an intrusion, it's distracting & I don't like it. Sorry.
Why do these inventions never make it to the commercial side. I have been watching about such discoveries for at least the last 20 years.
They do reach market, Portland Cement itself was patented in 1824 & current variants weren't available till the 1840s yet the Romans used a very similar & plainly long-lasting cement centuries before. What we're waiting for is fashion to change & that could easily be encouraged by for instance taxation.
China uses a lower-carbon cement.
Carbon taxes are not high enough yet.
Cement is so cheap that pretty much any alternative seems expensive. I think it was always going to be one of hte last climate techs to go mainstream. Wind, solar, EVs etc are competitive on price alone so they don't need as much effort to roll them out as it will take to get rid of traditional cement.
@@EngineeringwithRosie B1M & others are watching the market for wooden buildings grow using "engineered timber" & low-rise adobe is still viable (the cities in Yemen are marvels) & can be 3d-printed.
its like fusion, always 10 years away.
MCi is doing it already though, it just needs scaling, to me CCU makes most sense, we should use the carbon in the atmosphere directly as a building material, perfect use of sequestration.
We still don't know how to make fusion work, while we already know how most of these solutions she mentioned work and we're using them in a small scale.
I’ve been getting told about how fusion is just around the corner for 50 years now. We weren’t even talking about CO2 or climate change 50 years ago, and I wasn’t hearing about decarbonizing concrete until the past 5 years or so.
@@davestagnergosh, always focusing on the negative?
There are many ways we can improve our world, one step at a time. Science is also getting better and better.
Can a engineer explain how emissions on earth are changing all the planets climate??😂🎉
Sounds like we need to build buildings from wood
Producing net negative concrete would be a great source of carbon credits where there is a carbon tax.
The nature of supercritical CO2 makes CCS so difficult that it's cheaper to just leave it in the ground.
Perhaps you would explain what is the connection between supercritical CO2 and storing CO2 which has not been cooled in rock caverns etc which has already been successfully done in for instance the Sleipner field.
Cost is an issue, since historically releasing CO2 has been regarded as a freebie, but AFAIK has nothing at all to do with supercriticality.
@@davidmartin3947 I wouldn't be crowing too much about Sleipner.
CO2 is Injected into the rock pores, not caverns, and to do this requires 10s to 100s Mpa. That's when supercritical CO2 becomes an issue. The expense and short duty time of the materials required to operate under these conditions makes it all too hard.
Ask Chevron about their CCS nightmare at Gorgon.
@@3rdrock Since posts get killed if links to references are provided, discussion at any depth is not really possible.
But on the DOE site if one uses CO@ storage and supercriticality as search terms, supercritical storage is just one way of doing it, which does economise on the volumes needed, so why you should use potential issues with doing it that way to dismiss the whole field is mysterious.
That is not to say that there are not other potential issues with other techniques, but the one you have put front and centre just does not apply, so it seems that you are improperly generalising, presumably because you don't much fancy carbon storage.
I would agree that the possibility has often been used to justify 'carrying on regardless' with massively emmitting fossil fuel projects, but that does not justify making improper arguments against the tech, as there are quite enough sound arguments which can be made against reckless continuance of fossil fuel extraction with CCS held up as a fig leaf.
@@davidmartin3947 Your presumption has some truth in it but my position is based on actual experience in CO2 geosequestration.
Like you say, it works but I am pointing out that the devil is in the detail and that detail makes the process extremely difficult and expensive.
@@3rdrock I address the points presented, not the level of expertise of those who raise them.
You sought to argue that sequestration was impractical due to supercriticality.
Since in many or most cases supercriticality is not used, this in no way rules out other methods of storage, even assuming that your objection is a complete show stopper for supercritical storage.
And regarding levels of expertise, there are plenty of eminently qualified folk who would disagree with your position, one of whom posts on GreenCarCongress and I have had the pleasure to have been in discussion on line with.
Maybe CCS can't work, although there are umpteen forms of it including for instance ocean storage, but your arguments in no way prove it.
Just for the record, I intensely dislike the use of the notion of carbon storage as an excuse to carry on emitting, and the scope and cost of storage is far from clear.
But your attempt to rule it out 'from first principles' in all variants is not legitimate, and you have presented no arguments at all which in any way substantiate your position.
Your critique of supercritical storage is, if not quite irrelevant, at any rate inapplicable to most methods of CCS and in no way justifies your sweeping complete dismissal.
Nice analysis of cement making. Why do you not propose Nuclear electricity generation as a solution. It is a proven base load 24/7 supply, proven technology and is developing rapidly as an “off the shelf” energy solution.
Probably because of the information on the cost of nuclear she provided in this video
ruclips.net/video/quI_8xYSWYE/видео.html
The point of “electrify everything” is to decouple our energy consumption from our energy creation/transmission/storage. So it wouldn’t matter if it’s coming from renewables, batteries, nuclear, or even existing fossil fuel plants. Nuclear can be the “solution” in this by being less expensive than other sources. The problem is, nuclear is MORE expensive. Traditional nuclear can’t compete on cost. 4th gen nuclear has been focused on safety rather than on cost, and is 20 years away from even starting to scale enough to matter, even on the happiest of happy paths. And since renewables + storage solves the pressing CO2 problem, it would be incredibly hard to politically justify investing billions (or trillions) in nuclear and deliberately holding back renewables that are already inexpensive and effective.
Why do we need concrete, build using plastic (recycled) instead...
The house I am currently in has no concrete, it is made from bricks (clay) with lime mortar.
I walked along a 1Km path yesterday, over very wet ground, path was constructed from recycled milk bottles (HDPE plastic), including the structural beams that hold it up above the water.
You are a bit naïve. Highways, commercial buildings, bridges and dams are where most of the cement is used. While some substitution in buildings is possible, it creates new problems. Wooden buildings can burn, insects can eat them and they can rot. Clay materials have no tensile strength and absorb water.
@@alberthartl8885 None of the highways near me are made of concrete, only use of concrete seems to be for bridges and drainage. There is a new bridge being built near me, about 1Km long, if it had been built 10 years ago then it would have been almost entirely concrete, but it is actually being made of steel, interestingly unpainted steel, it is starting off life rusty, and that is how it will stay! Given that steel can be zero carbon, problem solved. As for dams, I walked across one earlier today, didn't use concrete except for the spillway, rest was a heap of stone, I think with a clay core, and that is one of the biggest in the country. I'm not convinced wooden buildings are sensible here, too wet, which is why I suggested plastic, which we already use for our windows, gutters, roofs. Yes, we have been using a huge amount of concrete, especially in cities, but I'm not convinced that we actually need it.
Carbon Capture is the biggest scam of all the greenwashing stuff. All you do is moving the problem from now to later while creating more emissions to deal with these.
What's the total cost?
Long-term impact of these substitutes?
How much carbon does an average volcano release annually?
How many active volcanoes?
Should we consider stopping them?
Or check out Neocrete, use the volcanoes to source cement replacement like the Roman’s did
... and reduce the construction of buildings made with concrete? Humans over many thousands of years have proven that we can live anywhere, so going vertical with concrete does not even need to be. There are billions of acres and hectares of land that could be developed still (and not wasted as national and state parks and the like.
This is great but it's a band-aid solution to over-population which is _the_ fundamental problem.
!! Fertility rates in much of the world are declining precipitously, at a rate which makes sustaining the tax base to pay for old folk difficult.
None of this is coming at scale any time soon and even if some of these techniques were to be adapted in the US, the US accounts for less than 4% of the world's cement production...
Even if we recycle concrete 100% engineers like u will still invoke the co2 global warming hype. FYI, co2 is a food source for everything that’s green. Instead of reporting on cement to control and or limit co2 we should try to reforest the deserts, if global warming is a thing other than Greta’s slogan.
Why do greenhouse farmer buy a lot of CO2?
What would happen if they reduced CO2 levels in their greenhouses?
What will happen when we miraculously managed to override the CO2 reserves exchange between soil, ocean and air, and reduced prevalence in the air? Who shall we nominate to be the first billion to die of starvation, on top of those already doing so, TODAY? How lovely to sit on our Western high horses and worry not about those less lucky to be able to grab the food away from others during global shortage and price escalation.
When that happens we just get a heap of coal and ignite it.
@@bernhardschmalhofer855 Why wait until it's too late and now invest so much in forcing people to reduce CO2 emissions at personal level, in a way that reduces average discretionary spending especially for the masses? Why not just burn coal today? Burning Maui, someone surely is benefiting from that, but I don't vote for that kind of destruction.
Loved the video Rosie, learned so much about the cement making process.
An excellent summary of the progress towards net zero cement and cement alternatives. Thanks, Rosie et al.
Thanks so much!