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Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

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Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#21

Post by galangalalgol »

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #5

One good thing the US and Canada does is to not use cement for houses ! It is somewhat negated by the terrible insulation in most homes in the US (and the fact that homes tend to last less long I guess). Does anyone have any data on how much gets emitted for house construction depending on the material ?

The us doesn't use concrete for residential walls (very often) but that is actually quite good from an insulation perspective. Hollow wood framed walls have a lot better r factor than solid concrete. We do have solid concrete foundations.

Edit: hollow walls filled with fiberglass to keep the air still

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#22

Post by superdude264 »

ForHackernews wrote: post #6
noja wrote: post #2

Is there an ordered list of what produces most pollution? What's at the top? Is there an easy way to answer the question "I just did environmentally bad thing X, now what can I do to offset that?"

One of the best lists is https://www.drawdown.org/solutions-summary-by-rank It's ranked in terms of low-hanging fruit ('these are the highest-impact changes we could make') rather than absolute harm, but the spirit is the same as the question you're asking. Realistically, the only thing you can do as an individual is campaign for political change: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/ http://climatehawksvote.com/ https://…

This is really neat. In this space, is the normal metric 'atmospheric CO2 equivalent'? Is this just so they can normalize the affects of all the different things that cause warming into one unit for discussion purposes?

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#24

Post by nabla9 »

sampo wrote: post #10
nabla9 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The list you provide is missing some man made sources of CO2 and methane. It's just CO2 emissions from fuel combustion. Meat production is almost as much as transportation, roughly 17%.

> Meat production is almost as much as transportation, roughly 17%. That 17% includes all transportation related to meat production. If meat was replaced by plant-based foods, not all of that transportation could be eliminated.

The overlap is less than 2% of the total man made CO2 emissions.

Processing and transportation of animal products is 6% of the meat production emissions. Feed production also involves transportation, that would add maybe half of that (3%).

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#25

Post by pjkundert »

peteradio wrote: post #18

Grading everything on one thing like CO2 pollution seems far too simplistic. I don't think you can get away with that approach, somehow we need a more holistic plan. Should we stop using Cement? What happens if we take that approach, do the alternatives that fill the gap actually further the ultimate goal, what even is the ultimate goal?

Absolutely. Reducing the plume of soot belching over the North Pole, blackening our ice fields would be a good, useful and achievable start.

Or is that not Politically Correct pollution?

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#26

Post by peteradio »

midnitewarrior wrote: post #17

Telling a lie then saying 3 Hail Marys means you are forgiven for the lie, it doesn't fix the lie. As such, planting a tree to be forgiven for going on a flight that burns carbon-laden jet fuel doesn't fix what you did. Fossil fuels are excess carbon atoms sequestered safely deep inside the Earth. Unless you can find a way to put them back there, there's no fixing the situation. Planting a tree does capture carbon. H…

Trees rotting produces compost and over time soil, soil which ultimately contains organic carbon. Perhaps overtime the organic carbon from the original tree is entirely gassed into the air somehow, but in the meantime you've been growing a second, third, and forth. Growing and composting plants does contribute to the sequestration of carbon and more importantly prevents methane production.

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#27

Post by the8472 »

Tuna-Fish wrote: post #16

However, concrete very slowly absorbs the CO2 back from the air, becoming limestone. I know this takes very long for thick structures, on the order of centuries. Does anyone have a good idea of just how long? Anyway, if a cement plant starts capturing the CO2 released during production and disposing of it somewhere other than the atmosphere, it would become a CO2 sink as the cement would slowly consume CO2 as it cure…

Calcining will release CO2 from the lime plus CO2 from the fuel to heat it. Only the former will be reabsorbed over time.

And if the timescales are long enough the absorbtion still wouldn't bring you to net-zero because during the time the CO2 in the atmosphere it participated in positive feedback loops.

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#28

Post by cagenut »

noja wrote: post #2

Is there an ordered list of what produces most pollution? What's at the top? Is there an easy way to answer the question "I just did environmentally bad thing X, now what can I do to offset that?"

realistically there is no way to "offset" carbon emissions today. there are plenty of people that will take your money, but to date they can be considered at best beta tests, not functioning solutions.

your choice is to vote hard environmentalist, agitate hard for immediate change, stop flying and stop driving and stop eating red meat.

or don't. but don't delude yourself. a lot of people wish so hard there were easier options that they will endlessly talk about made up ones. but those are the only real ones today.

Re: Cement Produces More Pollution Than All the Trucks in the World

#30

Post by taneq »

galangalalgol wrote: post #21
thatfrenchguy wrote: post #5

One good thing the US and Canada does is to not use cement for houses ! It is somewhat negated by the terrible insulation in most homes in the US (and the fact that homes tend to last less long I guess). Does anyone have any data on how much gets emitted for house construction depending on the material ?

The us doesn't use concrete for residential walls (very often) but that is actually quite good from an insulation perspective. Hollow wood framed walls have a lot better r factor than solid concrete. We do have solid concrete foundations. Edit: hollow walls filled with fiberglass to keep the air still

With hollow walls you can just use blow-in wool or cellulose insulation to make it even better. Can't really improve concrete without gluing polystyrene to it.

Hmm, could you just mix expanded polystyrene balls in to cement to make a high-R composite that's still strong enough to be structural?

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