Cement is Hard 🏛️
Cement is Hard . . . to make carbon free that is! A look at the built environment, specifically cement. Transitioning our built environment to less carbon or perhaps negative carbon.
Hey friends,
Happy almost Friday! Can’t say I’m a massive fan of football but I do feel like the Eagles got robbed a bit in last weekend’s Super Bowl.
As I was sitting there watching the Chiefs and Eagles battle it out I started to, as my mind likes to do, wander off and think about something else other than what was right in front of me. 😂 How absolutely challenging it will be to become a net-zero society when we build these massive structures like State Farm Stadium.
But these newsletters are meant to shed light on the great things happening behind the scenes to make exactly that happen, and that’s what we’ll look at a bit today.
In today’s email:
Some background on cement and its contribution to greenhouse gas emissions
Decarbonizing cement production
We Love Cement
As of 2022 America produced roughly 95 million tons of cement. That’s nearly 600 pounds per person! Cement is a key ingredient in concrete, which is used in just about everything we build.
What is cement/how is it made?
It is a mixture of materials, including limestone, clay, and other minerals. The basic steps to producing cement are; mining and preparation of raw materials such as limestone and clay, mixing and grinding in a cement mill to a fine powder, and heating the mixture in a kiln to temperatures between 1450°C to 2000°C causing a chemical reaction to form small, hard nodules called clinker, cooling and grinding the cement and finally packaging and distributing it.
Overall, making cement involves extracting and processing raw materials, grinding them into a fine powder, and then heating and cooling the mixture to produce a durable building material.
The whole process of producing cement can contribute to greenhouse gas emissions but primarily due to the carbon dioxide released during the calcination process.
Carbon is very useful in creating materials as it bonds easily with many different elements. We tend to source that carbon from fossil fuels which ultimately release carbon dioxide as a by-product.
Imagine the amount of concrete needed to produce stadiums like SoFi pictured above or State Farm Stadium as we saw this last Sunday in the super bowl. Materials like cement, steel, and plastic are at the forefront of climate change. Hence why we are beginning to see innovation toward making these materials zero and at times even negative carbon.
Climate Plug Spotlight - Decarbonizing Cement
Decarbonizing anything at this point in time is not easy. However, there are industry players working on developing carbon-free/less-carbon cement, which could significantly reduce the carbon footprint of construction. Cement production is responsible for about 8% of global carbon dioxide emissions and 5.5% of total global greenhouse gas emissions.
Alternative methods for producing cement.
There are several approaches being explored to create carbon-free or low-carbon cement. Some of these include:
Geopolymer cement: This type of cement is made by mixing industrial waste, such as fly ash or slag, with an alkaline solution. The resulting material can be used as a binder for construction materials.
Calcium sulfoaluminate cement: This type of cement is made using a blend of limestone and minerals that are rich in aluminum and sulfur. The resulting cement has a lower carbon footprint than traditional Portland cement.
Carbon capture and utilization: This approach involves capturing carbon dioxide emissions from the cement manufacturing process and using it to produce synthetic fuel or other chemicals. This technology is still in the early stages of development but shows promise for reducing the carbon footprint of cement production and for that matter many other carbon-producing manufacturing processes.
Alternative fuels: By replacing traditional fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, such as biomass or waste materials, the carbon footprint of cement production can be reduced.
Innovation in cement production.
One organization I want to highlight is Brimstone Energy. In 2022 they raised $55 million in funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures and DCVC, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm. Brimstone Energy is working to turn cement into a climate-change solution with its breakthrough process that makes carbon-negative cement.
As written in the CNBC article highlighting Brimstone Energy, Brimstone’s process creates ordinary Portland cement but leverages calcium silicate rock rather than limestone. They grind up this calcium silicate rock as a key ingredient.
Brimstone focuses on creating cement, similar to what we are already using, at a comparable or same cost.
On top of that Brimstone’s process creates a byproduct of a couple of forms of magnesium. These byproducts will react with carbon dioxide pulling it out of the air and turning creating a solid form of concrete. This could enable a carbon-negative cement while still using fossil fuel-produced heat.
Completely removing fossil fuels from the equation will require further innovation, and allow us to call back to our previous newsletter on renewable electricity. If we can produce enough renewal electricity alongside the tech needed to create high heat needed for things like cement production this could be a revolutionary process.
Thanks for reading and have a great week! If you found this insightful and want to make my day that much better please give this a share. 😎
— Brenden