Here's some good news for 2009. British scientists at Imperial College have discovered a concrete formulation, based on magnesium silicates, which absorbs CO2 as it hardens.
The manufacture of cement currently emits more carbon than the aviation industry. We have laid quite a bit of concrete on our farm in the last few years and I am mindful of the embedded carbon in it. At the moment there is no other credible surface which is sufficiently smooth, hard and load-bearing in a productive, fast-moving industrial environment.
Kudos to Imperial College, we can only rebuild (no pun meant) our economy with this sort of innovation. If this is what Gordon Brown is proposing here with his 100 000 new jobs, then I'm with him all the way. The remarkable work being done in our academic institutions is our greatest hope in these Crunchy (TM) times.
Leave a comment