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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

#61

Post by taneq »

shereadsthenews wrote: post #40
taneq wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Usually concrete walls have a foam core. Solid concrete is only about R0.5/in, about half as good as wood. Even so, insulated cavities are totally obsolete. Exterior foam is far superior.

Wow, really? Interesting, the one's I'm familiar with (used in tilt-up construction) are just solid concrete (maybe plus some rebar).

Totally with you on exterior foam though, you want the insulation outside of the thermal mass if at all possible.

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

#62

Post by xcklo »

torpfactory wrote: post #39
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…

The optimistic side of me reads this as a call to arms for engineers. The political and economic calculations aren't stagnant. If there emerge better and cheaper alternatives, the market will usually make the switch happen. The key thing is the presence of better alternatives. We're already seeing this in action with electricity generation. Solar and wind are cheaper for bulk generation than fossil sources. A few inc…

It is an engineering challenge, but not in development and innovation so much as in policy and implementation. There is a lack of understanding of that what is happening isn't a choice. It is an escalating situation where things you don't deal with today will cost more to deal with tomorrow. Something we and our societies aren't used to. Rather we are used to a Moore's law situation where things get better by themselves. The future will very likely be defined by who can provide more prosperity for less energy. Something that many countries won't manage to align with for many decades.

So unfortunately I think the optimism is misguided. The current trend is more like that demotivaional poster, "if you are not part of the solution, there is good money to be made in prolonging the problem".

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

#63

Post by bin0 »

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…

> The only way this is happening is if the planet gets depopulated of humans rapidly.

Please don't tell me you're one of those "earth would be better of were we all dead" people. I can't stand that kind of post-modernist, nihilistic garbage. I'm not mister optimist, but still, that's way too far.

Also, that kind of rhetoric is going to end up being a justification for some one very evil doing some thing very bad.

> The only way to fix this problem is to stop using fossil fuels. There is no politically viable way for this to happen.

Eeh, wrong. The fact that we're not there yet doesn't mean we can't get there. At some point, pulling energy out of thin air will end up cheaper than doing expensive drilling operations.

Post-modernists are the philosophical equivalent of the kid who gets mad when he loses at Monopoly, flips the board, and walks away.

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

#64

Post by johnr2 »

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…

"Planting a tree does capture carbon. However, when it dies and rots, all the carbon gets re-released over time back into the atmosphere."

Not all the carbon. Some of it stays in the ground to eventually form more fossil fuel.

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

#66

Post by billfruit »

nabla9 wrote: post #8
inapis wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Fossil fuels for power generation, followed by transportation and industry [1] > Is there an easy way to answer the question "I just did environmentally bad thing X, now what can I do to offset that?" Little bit but to seriously make an impact you might have to look for alternative sources of powering your life. But nevertheless every single bit helps. This climate change conundrum cannot be fixed without the en…

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%.

Does rice cultivation generate more greenhouse gases than meat farming?

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

#67

Post by bin0 »

yters wrote: post #38
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…

Nuclear power doesn't seem too politically non viable, especially if the alternative is rapid depopulation.

> rapid depopulation

What exactly do you mean by this, and how would you accomplish it? Assuming, that is, that nuclear doesn't work (for whatever reason), as you've drawn a dichotomy.

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

#68

Post by ggcdn »

voyager2 wrote: post #60

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_earth_block Concrete can be replaced in part through the use of CEB/CSEB and/or rammed earth.

This is maybe okay for single family homes in arid regions, but not practical for denser forms of housing. Which we should be striving for, if we're worried about reducing pollution

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

#69

Post by navigatesol »

tyfon wrote: post #20
Ensorceled wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally, there is very little you can change on an individual basis that will make a real difference. By all means, lead by example, but we have to support systemic changes at all levels of government to actually make any head way here.

If everyone thinks like this nothing will change. You can do both. Campaign for political change and change your personal behaviour. I've done radical changes to my life at least last few years to reduce my pollution/co2 footprint and if more people think like this it _will_ help. So saying that there is nothing that can be done on the individual level is quite dangerous as I personally think over time this will have…

>I've done radical changes to my life at least last few years to reduce my pollution/co2 footprint and if more people think like this it _will_ help.

Ah yes, the 1%, living in their mansions and driving Teslas to their summer homes, telling the rest of the world that they need to "make radical changes". Good luck with that.

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

#70

Post by c048 »

bin0 wrote: post #63
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…

> The only way this is happening is if the planet gets depopulated of humans rapidly. Please don't tell me you're one of those "earth would be better of were we all dead" people. I can't stand that kind of post-modernist, nihilistic garbage. I'm not mister optimist, but still, that's way too far. Also, that kind of rhetoric is going to end up being a justification for some one very evil doing some thing very bad. > T…

It's easy when you just focus on doom thinking and relegate everything else as fake or irrelevant.
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