Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth

[mystery-ak]

 Concrete: the most destructive material on Earth
Limestone quarries and cement factories are often sources of air pollution. Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy

After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on the planet. But its benefits mask enormous dangers to the planet, to human health – and to culture itself

    A brief history of concrete: from 10,000BC to 3D printed houses
    John Vidal: Concrete is tipping us into climate catastrophe. It’s payback time

by Jonathan Watts


Mon 25 Feb 2019 01.00 EST
Last modified on Mon 25 Feb 2019 15.04 EST



In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the global building industry will have poured more than 19,000 bathtubs of concrete. By the time you are halfway through this article, the volume would fill the Albert Hall and spill out into Hyde Park. In a day it would be almost the size of China’s Three Gorges Dam. In a single year, there is enough to patio over every hill, dale, nook and cranny in England.

After water, concrete is the most widely used substance on Earth. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world with up to 2.8bn tonnes, surpassed only by China and the US.

The material is the foundation of modern development, putting roofs over the heads of billions, fortifying our defences against natural disaster and providing a structure for healthcare, education, transport, energy and industry.

Concrete is how we try to tame nature. Our slabs protect us from the elements. They keep the rain from our heads, the cold from our bones and the mud from our feet. But they also entomb vast tracts of fertile soil, constipate rivers, choke habitats and – acting as a rock-hard second skin – desensitise us from what is happening outside our urban fortresses.

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https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/feb/25/concrete-the-most-destructive-material-on-earth

[skeeter]

Used to be looking into the mind of a madman was the purview only of mental health professionals, or those unlucky enough to inadvertently cross paths with a lunatic in the course of their daily lives.

Now all of us have it shoved down our throats on a daily basis.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

An interesting article to say the least.

Concrete is one heckuva great building material - until too much is used.

Article does seem to skip over the fact that concrete is almost a completely naturally-occurring substance, like is hydrocarbons. 

[Sanguine]

An interesting article to say the least.

Concrete is one heckuva great building material - until too much is used.

Article does seem to skip over the fact that concrete is almost a completely naturally-occurring substance, like is hydrocarbons.

I got the impression that because it is man-made it is bad. 

[roamer_1]

As to getting rid of concrete... Beat it into chunks and throw it in the river... It will be sand again soon enough.

I have been on jobs replacing rip-rap on earthen dikes. You would be surprised how fast the river whittles rocks away.

[EdJames]

Used to be looking into the mind of a madman was the purview only of mental health professionals, or those unlucky enough to inadvertently cross paths with a lunatic in the course of their daily lives.

Now all of us have it shoved down our throats on a daily basis.

@skeeter

Bravo!  Your post says so much.... so descriptive of our current reality.  Sadly.

[Hoodat]

Concrete - the preferred building material of the Soviet bloc (and socialist countries in general).  The Left is killing the planet!

[Elderberry]

Concrete is reusable. Its only aggregate and sand glued together with cement. Old concrete is busted up and used as aggregate for more concrete. Or used as road base materials. Totally reclaimable.

[Bill Cipher]

Apparently, the leftists would have us return to hand-built mud huts. 

[IsailedawayfromFR]

I got the impression that because it is man-made it is bad.

Yep, that's my read as well.

Funny isn't it that CO2 is deemed bad as well but it is also naturally occurring, except in very few cases.

[Elderberry]

Apparently, the leftists would have us return to hand-built mud huts.

They wouldn't be living in those mud huts long before they were making Tabby.

Tabby is a type of concrete made by burning oyster shells to create lime, then mixing it with water, sand, ash and broken oyster shells.

Back to concrete again.  History repeating itself.

[skeeter]

@skeeter

Bravo!  Your post says so much.... so descriptive of our current reality.  Sadly.

Thanks.

Problem is I’m beginning to feel like the crazy one.

[Sanguine]

Thanks.

Problem is I’m beginning to feel like the crazy one.

That's the plan.

[Joe Wooten]

As to getting rid of concrete... Beat it into chunks and throw it in the river... It will be sand again soon enough.

I have been on jobs replacing rip-rap on earthen dikes. You would be surprised how fast the river whittles rocks away.

I have seen old power plant lakes that had to replace the rip-rap because the water chemistry was leaching our calcium carbonate from the rocks and depositing it in the condenser tubes, causing serious drops in summertime efficiency.

[roamer_1]

I have seen old power plant lakes that had to replace the rip-rap because the water chemistry was leaching our calcium carbonate from the rocks and depositing it in the condenser tubes, causing serious drops in summertime efficiency.

We probably see it here more, where the water runs fast and powerful... But the principle applies no matter where there is water. It just takes more time. But here, you can almost literally see it happening.

[Absalom]

The Romans used a recipe for concrete w/great success in binding their
aqueducts/aquifers, giving them longevity.
How bout waking up and reviving their formula rather than bitching and
moaning!!!

[thackney]

The Romans used a recipe for concrete w/great success in binding their
aqueducts/aquifers, giving them longevity.
How bout waking up and reviving their formula rather than bitching and
moaning!!!

I think we have managed to keep concrete together underwater.

[bigheadfred]

The Romans used a recipe for concrete w/great success in binding their
aqueducts/aquifers, giving them longevity.
How bout waking up and reviving their formula rather than bitching and
moaning!!!

That won't do. Everything nowadays is designed to fail.

[Absalom]

I think we have managed to keep concrete together underwater.

-----------------------------------
Roman Engineers developed a formula 2000 years ago which is
NOT the same as that in place today; so take another look at it.
That was my point. Got it???

[Elderberry]

The Romans used a recipe for concrete w/great success in binding their
aqueducts/aquifers, giving them longevity.
How bout waking up and reviving their formula rather than bitching and
moaning!!!

https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/ammin/article-lookup/102/7/1435

American Mineralogist

 Research Article|July 01, 2017
Phillipsite and Al-tobermorite mineral cements produced through low-temperature water-rock reactions in Roman marine concrete

Implications

That in situ production of alkaline pore fluids derived from low-temperature interactions of seawater-derived fluids with components of trachytic Campi Flegrei pumiceous ash drives zeolite and Al-tobermorite crystallization in Roman marine concrete is a surprising discovery, since (1) laboratory Al-tobermorite syntheses have not been produced at ambient temperatures, and (2) release of alkali cations from rock aggregate in Portland cement concrete generally produces expansive alkali-silica gels that degrade structural concretes worldwide. By contrast, the alkaline fluids in Roman subaerial and submarine concrete piers and breakwaters produce precipitation of phillipsite and Al-tobermorite mineral cements that refine pore space, enhance bonding in pumice clasts and sequester alkali cations, principally sodium and potassium.

Roman marine concretes can provide guidelines for the optimal selection of natural volcanic pozzolans that have the potential to produce of regenerative cementitious resilience through long-term crystallization of zeolite, Al-tobermorite, and strätlingite mineral cements. The cross-linked structure and Al3+ bonding environments of the Roman Al-tobermorite crystals, recorded by Raman spectra through a range of cementitious microstructures and crystallization pathways, provide clues to creating new pathways for cation-change in high-performance concretes. Furthermore, the chemical and mechanical resilience of the marine concrete provides keys to understanding dynamic mineral cements in young, oceanic pyroclastic deposits, as at Surtsey (Jakobsson and Moore 1986), the seismic response of a volcanic edifice, as in deep Campi Flegrei deposits (Vanorio and Kanitpanyacharoen 2015), and carbon mineralization reactions, as occur in porous basaltic storage reservoirs for anthropogenic CO2 (Matter et al. 2016). Roman prototypes for brine-based concretes could conserve freshwater resources, generate multiple low temperature pathways to pozzolanic and post-pozzolanic Al-tobermorite sorbents with coupled Al3+ and exchangeable alkali cation sites, and extend applications of natural volcanic pozzolans to environmentally friendly, alkali-activated structural concretes and cementitious barriers for waste encapsulations.
1Deposit item AM-17-75993, Supplemental Table S1. Deposit items are free to all readers and found on the MSA web site, , via the specific issue's Table of Contents (go to http://www.minsocam.org/MSA/AmMin/TOC/2017/Jul2017_data/Jul2017_data.html).

More at link

[ABX]

If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world .....

Hold up... I thought concrete was a CO2 absorber, not emitter.

[bigheadfred]

@Smokin Joe ,

So in dumb guy words when Mt. St. Helens blew we should have been making concrete from the ash.

Goodbye Santorini, hello Colosseum.

[Smokin Joe]

@Smokin Joe ,

So in dumb guy words when Mt. St. Helens blew we should have been making concrete from the ash.

Goodbye Santorini, hello Colosseum.

@bigheadfred
Yep. But when you dig it up you make an ash hole.....
My bet is that the powers that be in the Pacific Northwest don't want any real big time ash holes around.
They don't want any competition.

[bigheadfred]

@bigheadfred
Yep. But when you dig it up you make an ash hole.....
My bet is that the powers that be in the Pacific Northwest don't want any real big time ash holes around.
They don't want any competition.

Taking on the left coast would be suicidal.

[thackney]

That was my point. Got it???

No, I guess I don't.