There have been a lot of suggestions put forward, some clearly lunatic, others clearly not well considered and some that make sense about what is called climate change but boils down to us looking after the planet we live on. All but the most hardened climate change denier accepts that something is happening. Our planet is changing as it has done over millennia. The differences are that a small amount want us to go back to the stone age to preserve the planet. Who for is yet unclear. The remainder are happy to do something about it, usually by changing our behaviour slightly and preparing to adapt to those changes as we have done in the past.
Now as part of looking at this problem we have those out to feather their own nests, our politicians for one, and we have those who believe that we should live our lives as they want, our whingy whiney people. Then we have scientists looking at things to see what they can do. Some of these things are possible, electric cars, some are not, back to subsistence living, and some we shouldn’t really play about with, weather modification.
But out of all the dross we seem to have there are a few items of gold. Items that could make a big difference and not cause a lot of us to die. One of these could be geopolymer concrete.
Geopolymer concrete is created from fly ash, an industrial waste usually tipped. It makes concrete that replaces the concrete we currently use at the rate of 2.6B tonnes pa and growing by 5% a year. The structures produced are estimated will last hundreds of years instead of the few decades nowadays, although I think most buildings are knocked down long before they would fall down. Taking into consideration that it also has higher corrosion and fire (up to 2400°F) resistance, high compressive and tensile strengths, a rapid strength gain, and lower shrinkage this material should make safer, stronger and better structures all round. As a bonus it is expected to reduce the CO2 output by up to a whopping 90% over normal concrete.
Even ignoring the benefits of the CO2 reduction we would have a winner with this concrete. With even a fraction of the CO2 reduction estimated we clearly have a tool of progress that not even our politicians or whingy whiney greenies can object to.
Some gold in the dross
There have been a lot of suggestions put forward, some clearly lunatic, others clearly not well considered and some that make sense about what is called climate change but boils down to us looking after the planet we live on. All but the most hardened climate change denier accepts that something is happening. Our planet is changing as it has done over millennia. The differences are that a small amount want us to go back to the stone age to preserve the planet. Who for is yet unclear. The remainder are happy to do something about it, usually by changing our behaviour slightly and preparing to adapt to those changes as we have done in the past.
Now as part of looking at this problem we have those out to feather their own nests, our politicians for one, and we have those who believe that we should live our lives as they want, our whingy whiney people. Then we have scientists looking at things to see what they can do. Some of these things are possible, electric cars, some are not, back to subsistence living, and some we shouldn’t really play about with, weather modification.
But out of all the dross we seem to have there are a few items of gold. Items that could make a big difference and not cause a lot of us to die. One of these could be geopolymer concrete.
Geopolymer concrete is created from fly ash, an industrial waste usually tipped. It makes concrete that replaces the concrete we currently use at the rate of 2.6B tonnes pa and growing by 5% a year. The structures produced are estimated will last hundreds of years instead of the few decades nowadays, although I think most buildings are knocked down long before they would fall down. Taking into consideration that it also has higher corrosion and fire (up to 2400°F) resistance, high compressive and tensile strengths, a rapid strength gain, and lower shrinkage this material should make safer, stronger and better structures all round. As a bonus it is expected to reduce the CO2 output by up to a whopping 90% over normal concrete.
Even ignoring the benefits of the CO2 reduction we would have a winner with this concrete. With even a fraction of the CO2 reduction estimated we clearly have a tool of progress that not even our politicians or whingy whiney greenies can object to.