Capturing carbon dioxide emissions helps slow climate change, and the captured CO2 could be used as materials for consumer goods. But is the public ready to accept those goods?
Lucca Henrion, Duo Zhang, Victor C. Li and Volker Sick
Bendable concrete created at the University of Michigan allows for thinner structures with less need for steel reinforcement. Joseph Xu/University of Michigan College of Engineering
One of the big contributors to climate change is right beneath your feet, and transforming it could be a powerful solution for keeping greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere.
The production of cement, the binding element in concrete, accounted for 7% of total global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018. Concrete is one of the most-used resources on Earth, with an estimated 26 billion tons produced annually worldwide. That production isn’t expected to slow down for at least two more decades.
Bendable concrete created at the University of Michigan allows for thinner structures with less need for steel reinforcement. Joseph Xu/University of Michigan College of EngineeringOne of the big contributors to climate change is right beneath your feet, and transforming it could be a powerful solution for keeping greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. The production of cement, the binding element in concrete, accounted for 7% of total global carbon dioxide emissions in 2018. Concrete is one of the most-used resources on Earth, with an estimated 26 billion tons produced annually worldwide. That production isn’t expected to slow down for at least two more decades. Given the scale of the industry and its greenhouse gas emissions, technologies that can reinvent concrete could have profound impacts on climate change. As engineers working on issues involving infrastructure and construction, we have been designing the next generation of concrete technology that can reduce infrastruct
Volker Sick is the DTE Energy Professor of Advanced Energy Research and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He leads the Global CO2 Initiative at the University of Michigan that seeks to get CO2 capture and use recognized and implemented as a mainstream climate solution. He received awards for teaching, research, and service, including the President’s Award for Distinguished Service in International Education, the Combustion Institute Silver Medal, and the SAE International Leadership Citation. He is a Fellow of SAE International and the Combustion Institute. Prof. Sick holds three degrees in Chemistry and Physical Chemistry from the University of Heidelberg, Germany.
E-Mail
The virtual conferencing that has replaced large, in-person gatherings in the age of COVID-19 represents a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, but those online meetings still come with their own environmental costs, new research from the University of Michigan shows.
The research offers a framework for analyzing and tallying the carbon emissions of an online conference based on factors that include everything from energy used by servers and monitors to the resources used to manufacture and distribute the computers involved.
It also includes a case study showing that a May 2020 virtual conference held by the AirMiners carbon removal networking community produced 66 times less greenhouse gas emissions that an in-person gathering in San Francisco would have.