[HN Gopher] Cement's future could be a combination of carbon cap...
___________________________________________________________________
Cement's future could be a combination of carbon capture and
electrification
Author : hannob
Score : 97 points
Date : 2023-06-15 12:02 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (industrydecarbonization.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (industrydecarbonization.com)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Seawater is a source of calcium, and it looks like desalination
| concentrate is an option for limited scale production:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41545-022-00153-6
|
| "Seawater desalination concentrate--a new frontier for
| sustainable mining of valuable minerals" (2022)
|
| > "The metallic elements found in the highest concentration are
| sodium, magnesium, calcium and potassium, which have been
| commercially extracted as the chlorides, sulfates, and carbonates
| while magnesium has been extracted as the hydroxide."
| samwillis wrote:
| The best way to reduce carbon emission from cement would be to
| use less of it.
|
| Here in the UK, 30% of the cost of a new house build is the
| foundations, the excavation, and then filling of a hole in the
| ground with many tons of concrete. I find it baffling how little
| innovation in construction has been adopted by the house building
| industry here. Light weight timber frame construction on pile
| foundations would massively reduce both the carbon footprint of
| the build and the cost.
|
| When I have made these arguments before, people often respond
| that our heavy weight brick construction is better as it
| withstands the weather more, and will last longer. But with
| modern materials (or good old traditional maintenance) thats just
| not true, a timber frame house can last hundreds of years.
|
| Finally, it's not just the carbon emissions from cement
| manufacturing that worries me. I live about 3 miles from a cement
| factory, and the amount of dust that it puts out is staggering.
| If I clean my car, within two days it's covered in a thin layer
| of dust thats locally attributed to the factory. I can't imagine
| thats good for our health!
| londons_explore wrote:
| There is a good argument that buildings _shouldn 't_ last so
| long.
|
| Buildings a mere 50 years ago probably have very poor
| insulation (and hence high heating/cooling environmental +
| monetary costs), have electrics that aren't considered safe
| today, have plumbing probably containing lots of lead, and are
| lacking amenities considered standard today (electrical outlet
| next to the bed for phone charging, mixer taps, etc). Those
| buildings probably won't resist fire for long, and probably
| won't be suitable for heat pump heating. Sound insulation
| probably won't be good, so you probably get woken by your
| neighbour having sex.
|
| All those things are fixable for a cost, or livable with a hit
| to quality of life, the environment, the house owners health,
| etc.
|
| If we assume that the requirements for a home continue to
| evolve, then we can see that something built today would be
| unlikely well suited for use in 50 years. Considering that,
| perhaps it's best to build something easy to disassemble and
| rebuild 50 years from now.
| mortify wrote:
| Sound insulation in older homes is much better than in new.
| Thicker and heavier materials are much better at absorbing or
| reflecting sound, especially low frequency. Fire resistance
| seems to be a wash. I've seen the aftermath of new and old
| construction. We don't seem to have made improvements in this
| regard, but we have made the likelihood of them starting
| lower in all kinds of construction.
|
| The opposing argument for much of their down-sides is the up-
| front cost of building a new home has it's own environmental
| and financial costs. Much of the down-sides to older homes
| can be retrofitted for substantially less cost and impact
| than a new home.
|
| We could get the best of both worlds by designing homes for
| upgrades with large conduits for wirings, easier access to
| walls and attics, etc.
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| >> by designing homes for upgrades with large conduits for
| wirings
|
| Why isn't this more common? I've watched a few spray foam
| installations on youtube where they just spray directly
| over romex / wiring / cables .
| brohee wrote:
| I think this is kinda needed for air tightness, but
| shouldn't stop anyone from running empty conduits for
| future use...
| spockz wrote:
| Because that allows contractors to sell empty conduits at
| a large margin. Every conduit and potential outlet is
| charged for through the nose.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| The best apartment building I ever lived in in NYC was
| built in the 1920s and was built "naturally fireproof",
| where there were thick masonry walls between each unit to
| prevent the spread of fire. I literally never heard a
| single neighbor, anywhere, ever. Not my same-floor
| neighbors, nor the people above or below me.
|
| Compare that with newer buildings I lived in, where I would
| be woken up at 3AM by my upstairs neighbor's cat running
| around.
| skullone wrote:
| My house was built in 1885, timber framed. There's no rot,
| it's been maintained, re-plumbed and re-wired a few times,
| and new owners only need to keep with basic maintenance. It's
| been insulated as well, utility bills are in the $90-150
| range depending on how extreme the seasons get. The structure
| has another century left in it, easy.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's surely cheaper to rewire and refit, than to knock the
| whole thing down to the foundations and start again.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Doing all those things at once, it's usually cheaper to
| knock down and start from scratch.
|
| The problem lies in a homeowner who doesn't have much spare
| cash - so they rewire one year... and then a few years
| later they replumb... and then a few years later they
| replace the roof... etc.
|
| Overall, they spent more, but in small increments so it
| didn't feel like more.
|
| Typically regulations allow things to be 'grandfathered' -
| so renovating a house allows you to avoid getting
| permission to rebuild, which may be denied.
| notahacker wrote:
| The idea that periodic replumbing and rewiring and
| replacing roofing felt costs less overall than a complete
| rebuild is questionable enough in terms of financial
| cost, even more so in terms of carbon output cost.
|
| Sure, the [carbon] accounting looks a little different if
| you're having to pull out most of the load-bearing walls
| to accommodate a change of use and underpin to build on
| top or considering replacing old masonry with something
| built to maximise energy efficiency. But rebuilding
| entire houses to keep up with the latest fads in mobile
| charge ports and mixer taps is about as good for the
| environment as "fast fashion"!
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Doing all those things at once, it's usually cheaper to
| knock down and start from scratch.
|
| This must be regional. In the PNW we'd never knock
| something down for that. Stripping the drywall out and
| redoing the plumbing/electrical/insulation is quite a lot
| less expensive than putting up a whole new structure.
| cmrdporcupine wrote:
| Beyond finances, there's simply the nightmare of -- where
| the hell do I live while my house is being rebuilt? We've
| put off kitchen & main floor _renovations_ for a half
| decade simply because we don 't want to deal with the
| hassle, a rebuild is another thing entirely.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Many houses are naturally unused for months at a time -
| for example between tenants if let. Between owners when
| sold, or after the inhabitant passes away.
| dubcanada wrote:
| > Light weight timber frame construction on pile foundations
|
| > But with modern materials (or good old traditional
| maintenance) thats just not true, a timber frame house can last
| hundreds of years.
|
| I am not sure were you are reading that "timber frame house can
| last hundreds of years" but I don't believe that is correct,
| most timber frame houses have an estimated 30 year life span. A
| stone/brick house can last thousands of years.
|
| I do agree that a stick frame/light weight timber house is way
| less concrete then a brick/stone house. But UK doesn't have a
| ton of trees, so the majority of those trees are imported from
| EU places like Belarus or Canada. Which is a bunch of gas in
| itself.
|
| Pile foundations also have tons of problems, and have a very
| high fail rate. They don't do well with salt water, so costal
| areas in UK will have problems, they don't do well with
| stone/bedrock. Which UK has a ton of.
|
| I believe there is tons of work to do, but I disagree that the
| solution is stick framing and pile foundations. I think the
| actual solution is innovation and reduction of some building
| standards to allow innovation. It's very very difficult to even
| experiment with building materials as every building code
| requires X insulation and any building official will complain
| if you have Y. So everyone just uses X.
|
| ICF for example is absolute garbage, its marketed as a eco
| friendly, green building material that's made from oil and
| filled with a truck load of cement. How that got classified as
| a "eco-friendly green building material" is beyond me.
|
| Meanwhile things that are actually eco-friendly like hemp,
| straw, etc all require a ton of engineering and have zero
| standards, so everything has to be engineered. And you'll get
| crazy looks from building officials when you ask for a review
| of your straw timber frame house.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Timber frames can definitely last hundreds of years. I have
| multiple family members on my wife's side who live in houses
| with parts dating back 100-200 years. They've been kept up
| and more or less continuously occupied, but it's not as
| though that meant continuously conditioned as we would think
| of it until sometime in the 20th century.
|
| Hell, you can drive through New England and see barns that
| are 150 years old that are only starting to fall down after
| 50 years of deferred maintenance.
|
| If you keep wood dry, it'll last a good long while. Whether
| you consider 100-200 years a long time, will of course depend
| on perspective:
|
| "In Europe, they think 100 miles is a long way. In the US,
| they think 100 years is a long time."
|
| - William the Conqueror
| theluketaylor wrote:
| I live in a ballon-framed house built in 1926. Coming up on
| 100 years and with reasonable maintenance there is no reason
| it won't last another 100. There are some terribly built
| wooden houses that will just rot away, but it's not that hard
| to do it right.
|
| Wood as a building material when used properly can be
| incredibly resilient, especially with modern mass timber
| solutions rather than raw wood.
| Dig1t wrote:
| >with modern mass timber solutions rather than raw wood
|
| Do you mean things like LSL?
|
| I actually wonder what the longevity of LSL is compared to
| raw wood. Since it's a ton of resin mixed with wood, I
| wonder about the resin part of it.
|
| It does seem much better to build with as bugs won't eat it
| and it's perfectly straight.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Laminated strand is certainly under the heading of mass
| timber, but I'm referring more to cross laminated timber
| (CLT). It still uses resin, but with much more wood it
| doesn't suffer from the sort of rot and de-laminating
| problems OSB has, but it's still highly engineered and
| highly precise like LSL.
|
| Laminated veneer lumber (LVL) has become common in North
| America for beams and joists. CLT uses even larger
| components and is even more flexible. It's just starting
| to be used but you can build everything from a house to
| 20 storey buildings.
| robbiep wrote:
| I know nothing about this, but do you know what the
| environmental/recyclable potential of the resins are?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Agree. My first house was a wood-frame bungalow built near
| the prior turn of the century. As long as you don't get
| termites, and maintain the roof and siding so you don't
| have water leaking in, wood houses will last basically
| forever, or at least on the order of 100 years.
| cand0r wrote:
| I'd like to point out that wood 100 years ago was mostly
| old growth, which differs drastically to the lumber
| available today.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Modern mass timber more than corrects that problem. It
| does a fantastic job using fast growing, new growth
| lumber to produce highly precise parts that are factory
| produced exactly to spec to nearly eliminate waste.
| 8note wrote:
| Highly precise lumber parts sounds like an oxymoron. The
| standard assumption for wood is that it's only straight
| while it's being cut. If they've invented fix for that,
| it's not gonna be the wood that they're using that does
| it, but some extra processing to make like a particle
| board or something
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Modern mass timber has advanced a long way beyond cheap
| particle board. Read up on cross laminated timber.
| Manufactured and cut exactly to size and often requires
| no cutting on site.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > estimated 30 year life span
|
| Did you misplace a digit? If you're only getting 30 years
| from a wood frame house, you're _definitely_ doing something
| wrong.
| luplex wrote:
| > I am not sure were you are reading that "timber frame house
| can last hundreds of years" but I don't believe that is
| correct, most timber frame houses have an estimated 30 year
| life span. A stone/brick house can last thousands of years.
|
| I have in fact lived in a timber frame house that was 400
| years old and going strong. No idea about its history, but it
| was rather comfortable and cozy. It wasn't particularly well
| insulated though.
| linuxandrew wrote:
| Different climate but I lived in two poorly maintained
| Queenslanders[1] which were a popular style of timber on
| piles here, both 50 years old and would easily last longer.
| One even had minor termite damage which was later treated.
|
| Many people here do knock down rebuilds but most would easily
| last longer than 30 years. Many timber houses get re-stumped
| after a few decades and concrete piles seem to be a popular
| choice for replacement.
|
| I see a lot of poorly built homes on slabs as well which seem
| to have a similar lifespan as the Queenslanders
| (anecdotally).
|
| 1:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queenslander_(architecture)
| vidarh wrote:
| > I am not sure were you are reading that "timber frame house
| can last hundreds of years" but I don't believe that is
| correct, most timber frame houses have an estimated 30 year
| life span. A stone/brick house can last thousands of years.
|
| I grew up in a four family timber house built in the 1960's.
| It's still standing. As are all the houses on that road which
| were all built at the same time. We moved to a timber house
| built around 1910. It's still standing - I walked past it
| just last year. My grandparents lived in a development of all
| wooden houses built in the 1950's. They're all standing.
|
| Where did you get this notion they have a life span of 30
| years? Norway has plenty of wooden houses that have stood for
| a 100+ years, and a huge bulk of post-war construction from
| the 50's and 60's in wood.
|
| On the more extreme end, there are a number of stave churches
| in wood dating back to the 1200's. Of course they're the
| outlies that survived, and have certainly required
| maintenance.
|
| EDIT: Here's a list of stave churches in Norway, and
| construction years. Some of these have been rebuilt during
| that time, but even those that have typically have a lifetime
| of each iteration measured in centuries, with a few
| exceptions:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stave_churches_in_Norw.
| ..
|
| As a fun curiosity, here's Vang stave church, "moved" from
| Norway to Poland in 1842, originally built in the 1200's.
| "Moved" because most of the material ended up being discarded
| because the builders handling the re-erection didn't quite
| know how and found it easier to replace most of it. So the
| current iteration is really "only ~180 years old, and might
| have been moved and rebuilt once before, but in any case each
| iteration survived rather a bit longer than 30 years:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vang_Stave_Church
| bequanna wrote:
| 30 years is far too low. Most homes built in the US will
| easily make it 70 years.
|
| Heck, I've seen many trailer houses that are in decent
| shape and >30 years old.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| The life span is probably more due to the lifespan of the
| plumbing. On high-grade copper(L- or K-) you can get a
| useful life of 50 years but PEX is only rated for 30 years,
| and the lowest grade of copper(M-type) has a similar
| replacement interval. The valves used in plumbing fixtures
| also wear out and need replacement periodically. And the
| valve housings do as well. The anode in a water heater will
| probably only last a couple of decades. These are all
| replaceable parts.
|
| Siding is in a similar state, with many modern sidings have
| replacement intervals in the decades, and shorter time
| periods if you don't paint every 5-10 years.
|
| If properly maintained and if parts are replaced in a
| timely manner a house can last indefintely. My partner and
| I own a house from 1935 that was last renovated in the
| 1990s, and I'm starting to have to make minor plumbing
| repairs. I think in the next 10 years or so we'll have to
| re-pipe and re-wire. But the framing and sheathing is
| almost all original, except for the roof deck which was
| replaced first in the 1990's and then parts were replaced
| when we re-roofed last year(the original roofer did not
| know how to frame to support a rake board).
|
| Everything also changes if you factor in repainting and
| replacement of interior fixtures.
|
| But still, if you maintain it and factor in all these
| repairs and replacements your house can last for hundreds
| of years.
| CalRobert wrote:
| For what it's worth, I have a 200 year old cottage that
| probably has a few centuries left in it, and the plumbing
| and wiring is all in conduits that are easily accessed.
| Maybe we should make it easier to replace this stuff
| without ripping the house apart?
| CalRobert wrote:
| I had a house built in Ireland and the architect was a huge
| pain in the ass. She wanted concrete _ceilings_ ffs. In a
| single story dwelling. She also thought it was ludicrous I
| wasn't using concrete blocks, and anything like a pier or post
| and beam foundation was completely out of the question.
|
| The funny thing is that the houses here are pure shite so it's
| not like this approach has been working for them. Utter,
| abominable, crap. Ugly, too.
|
| I was able to get a timber frame and wood ceilings but still
| have a concrete foundation. The builders were so proud of it
| being an insulated foundation (KORE) but you wouldn't even
| _need_ that if the house were lifted off the ground, like it
| should be.
|
| I asked one forward-minded engineer about it and he said it was
| down to people being brainwashed by "concrete built is better
| built" ads from the 80's and centuries of complete
| deforestation.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Cement is used in most city infrastructure, for industrial
| builds, etc. The demand for it in the U.S. probably dwarfs the
| UK several times over despite lumber use for houses, _and_
| poured concrete no longer popularly used for foundations.
|
| If you want to abate it, you'd need to look far beyond that
| particular use-case in the UK. I don't see low-hanging fruit
| here. Cement is reliable and inexpensive. There is R&D in the
| works for eco-cement, but this appears to be in early stages.
|
| It's possible to reduce emissions in its production in the
| first place. Notwithstanding the calcium carbonate, energy
| inputs (which are very high) could eventually not rely on
| fossil fuels.
|
| If the goal is to pursue an aggressive timeline for curbing CO2
| emissions then probably CC & electrical will appear first.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > The best way to reduce carbon emission from cement would be
| to use less of it.
|
| Disagree.
|
| I think we need to return to the future through rediscovering
| Roman Concrete [1] and making structures that can last
| thousands of years.
|
| Concrete also, can be recycled and used again.
|
| Because we are in a deglaciation period currently, in general I
| am skeptical about moving to a low CO2 environment which is not
| normal for the earth. However, I am sensitive to the fact that
| we must be stewards and caretakers of the earth and make the
| best use of resources, while polluting less, and moving to a
| more sustainable future through a grand conversion process
| eventually.
|
| [1] https://news.mit.edu/2023/roman-concrete-durability-lime-
| cas...
| pjc50 wrote:
| How is the relative cost? Timber is historically much more
| expensive in the UK than in the US, the major user of timber
| construction.
| samwillis wrote:
| Correct, timber is expensive here - particularly over the
| last 3 years - but I believe a timber frame construction is
| still a little lower than a brick contraction in cost. SIPs
| (structurally insulated panels) are more expensive than
| brick, but I suspect that more to do with available expertise
| and the need for expensive cranes. (As an aside its
| fascinating visiting France where every house building site
| has a crane, none do here)
|
| But many timber frame houses here are still build on massive
| concrete slabs, and that is still pouring money into the
| ground. We need to adopt innovations like screw piles that
| are completely concrete free.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Having had to buck timber trusses to a second floor roof, I
| think cranes are a wonderful invention and we should have
| more of them.
| was_a_dev wrote:
| I know we have wet and cold climate in the UK, but it is also
| pretty mild.
|
| We could have timber framed housing, as we don't get hit by
| natural disasters with the exception of flooding
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Reduction is also item number 1 in their linked factsheet:
|
| https://fcarchitects.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/20230206...
|
| > Modernize building standards to favor low-carbon materials
| and circular use
|
| > Promote low-carbon practices in industry and curricula
|
| > Update building and infrastructure regulations based on
| required performance, instead of prescriptions on material
| conten
| theluketaylor wrote:
| For regions that don't have to worry about a frost line helical
| screw piles and mass timber are game-changing building
| capabilities to construct concrete free. It's even possible to
| build carbon negative thanks to the timber locked in the
| building. And it's way faster since you don't spend months
| preparing a site and building forms.
|
| Even frost line regions could dramatically cut their concrete
| usage if they just focused on protecting the water lines. You
| would lose a basement, but those are expensive per sq ft
| anyway. Just go up another floor for less total costs.
|
| Local building codes will get in the way since building
| inspectors tend to reject things they haven't seen before (like
| mass timber frame) and way too many places have incredibly
| strict height restrictions.
|
| It is incredible to watch helical screw piles go in. A friend
| needed 60+ posts installed for a big fence. Would have been
| days of digging or augering post holes down 4 ft for the frost
| line and then mixing hundreds of bags of cement and filling the
| holes with concrete. Instead a contractor with a small tracked
| machine that fit through a standard gate drove every pile in
| under an hour.
| dylan604 wrote:
| >And it's way faster since you don't spend months preparing a
| site and building forms.
|
| What size house are you building that it takes months
| preparing a site to build foundations? Sub 2000sqft houses
| are built to completion in 90-120 days if weather doesn't
| delay things. It only takes a couple of weeks from clearing
| the site, digging the trenches, lining the moisture barrier,
| laying the rebar and forms, then pouring the cement. The
| formulas today cure very quickly. From the day of the pour to
| the start of framing is practically the blink of an eye
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Here in Canada it's extremely common for ground works for a
| new subdivision to take over a year.
|
| Individual houses can be done in a much shorter time, but
| digging a basement, setting all the forms, pouring the
| concrete, waterproofing the walls, underpinning the water
| management, and then back filling back to grade is not a
| quick process.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You're comparing the time it takes a developer to clear
| the entire development to the time it takes to build a
| single house. These are not the same thing. That's
| comparing apples and oranges. Comparing the time for a
| house with no basement to one with a basement is
| comparing a granny smith to a red delicious.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Even a single house worth of ground works is 30-60 days
| pretty easily.
| rafamvc wrote:
| You can use helical screw piles in places with a frost line.
| As long as the blades are below the frost line.
| theluketaylor wrote:
| Absolutely true, but you still need a plan for protecting
| the water lines. You need some kind of underground
| insulated structure below the frost line that can handle
| direct dirt contact. Annoyingly concrete remains the best
| option.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I live in an area with freezing weather. The water pipe
| to my house is just a PVC pipe buried below the frost
| line, i.e. in a trench about 3 or 4 feet deep. There's no
| concrete involved.
| blake1 wrote:
| Was recently in a fairly new construction house in a very
| cold climate state that did not have a full basement
| below the frost line. There was a partial 8'x8' corner
| that sunk down to where the water line came in, but the
| rest of the footprint was a crawl space. Losing the
| basement does affect the style of building that is
| economical to build on top though, mainly due to building
| codes.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| A basement is nice to have if you live in an area with
| tornados.
| nofeelings wrote:
| Why aren't they already doing that? If what you're saying is
| true they would since the implication is that it's cheaper.
| replygirl wrote:
| Same reason most people don't write Rust: The talent, best
| practices, and vendor ecosystem are less accessible. Similar
| to Rust it's much more accessible than people _think_ though
| cschmidt wrote:
| Here's an interesting Economist article on the same subject:
|
| https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/06/07/...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| I was just sent a _Vox_ video on the topic. Someone is running
| a campaign.
| Faaak wrote:
| Mixing biochar with concrete actually makes it harder (or you can
| add less cement to it), while storing CO2 (biochar is a viable
| CO2 pit).
|
| Can't link the sources because mobile, but if you're interested
| look it up, it's really interesting. It's being certified in
| France right now.
| luis_cho wrote:
| Why do we need more cement?
|
| In my country there are 2 houses for each family, and we in a
| housing crisis.
|
| Maybe the solution can be less speculation, a social solution
| instead of a technological one.
| slothtrop wrote:
| Even if you want to increase density, you'd need concrete to
| achieve it. Cost of housing is inversely correlated to the rate
| of new builds in cities, and the reason is the growth in demand
| through immigration. Can't have your cake and eat it too: want
| more immigration? Build more.
|
| > a social solution
|
| Such as what, coercing multiple families to share detached
| homes? Would you volunteer for that? And how far do we expect
| to push that when the demand for housing will keep growing?
| drekk wrote:
| Apartments work fine? In lower density areas simple duplexes
| or quadplexes work fine. We don't need every single family
| living in an isolated home with the white picket fence.
|
| We have more than enough homes. There are over two dozen
| empty homes per homeless person. It's not just an issue of
| building more. Shelter is being treated as a speculative
| asset and the only meaningful vehicle for building weath in
| the middle class. Hence the need for a social solution.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > Apartments work fine?
|
| You must be familiar with the monumental amount of concrete
| these require, yes? They are more dense, but not "low-
| carbon" by any stretch.
|
| > We don't need every single family living in an isolated
| home with the white picket fence.
|
| Families can decide for themselves what suits them. It's
| not your place to tell someone they don't "need" something.
| You don't "need" most of your possessions. Hell you don't
| even "need" a roof over your head, as it pertains to
| survival.
|
| And we sure don't "need" to race to the bottom and demand
| lower qualify of life from everyone. Not for homelessness,
| and not for building efficiency. It does not solve
| anything. It's purpose is in-group virtue signaling.
|
| > We have more than enough homes.
|
| If that were true, more people could afford them.
| Affordability scales with the rate of new builds.
|
| > There are over two dozen empty homes per homeless person.
|
| Notwithstanding that this is unsourced, lodgment =/= home
| ownership and homelessness is its own special problem that
| includes factors beyond cost.
|
| > Hence the need for a social solution.
|
| We have those, and they're only being expanded.
| wizofaus wrote:
| > Families can decide for themselves what suits them.
|
| But they only can choose from what gets built, and what
| gets built is ultimately a function of what builders
| consider profitable and what legislation allows. And what
| legislation allows is based, to a significant extent, on
| what infrastructure can be provided to support particular
| types of residences. If a government decides it can't be
| bothered (or afford) upgrading or building the necessary
| infrastructure to support more apartment dwellings then
| families aren't going to get to choose living in them.
| Similarly, what's profitable depends on how taxes and
| other fees are levied from profits made by property
| developers and owners etc. Families don't get much choice
| over that either.
| slothtrop wrote:
| > a function of what builders consider profitable and
| what legislation allows
|
| Change legislation (qua zoning, qua regs) and you
| increase the rate of builds, which should adequately meet
| current demand. Of course, the laws of physics are in
| play - if the immigration rate is high, thereby
| perpetually increasing demand, you still won't build fast
| enough.
|
| This is what YIMBYs have to remember about Japan, which
| they frequently cite. The population doesn't grow much.
| Can't have it both ways: build, or reduce immigration.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| You can live in your human storage compartment. I'm happy
| in my house, thanks.
| luis_cho wrote:
| We could add taxes for cement that could be redirected to a
| carbon dividend.
|
| There is a environmental cost that we are not paying when we
| build houses, and having a tax it's a fair way to incorporate
| this externalities. I don't trust the state with the money
| from this taxes so lets share them equally with the
| population.
|
| We can do the same with aviation that would also reduce
| speculation of the house prices.
| ayemel wrote:
| The US is currently on shoring a significant amount of
| manufacturing, need new builds to support this.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Three possible, not-mutually exclusive answers:
|
| - Fewer families now then before
|
| - Significant net movement of people (e.g. the UK took in 0.6m
| immigrants in 2022, pushing up housing requirements) resulting
| in more houses being needed in some locations even if the world
| had zero extra people
|
| - Cement isn't reusable, so once it's set it's only useful in
| that place
| Velofellow wrote:
| cement [?] concrete, but concrete is indeed recyclable. I
| know TxDOT (likely other agencies and municipalities) allows
| its use, often as aggregate material for HMAC paving. The
| cured concrete is crushed, sorted by gradation and used
| accordingly. Concrete rubble can also be used in retaining
| walls along with some backfill applications.
|
| https://www.dot.state.tx.us/business/contractors_consultants.
| ..
| londons_explore wrote:
| Most concrete products can be recycled.
|
| But, due to the very low cost of cement and other related
| products, it is rarely economical to transport end of life
| concrete far to be reused.
|
| However, if there are effective taxes on disposing of
| concrete (as there are throughout the EU+UK), then concrete
| does tend to get reused.
| StefanWestfal wrote:
| That is true for a lot of western countries but we are expect
| to produce and consume more concrete until 2050 then we did so
| far in history in developing countries.
| roywashere wrote:
| I think it is interesting to see that hannob who wrote many
| articles on IT security now seems to have pivoted to covering
| 'green and energy' topics. All submissions to HN in the last year
| are not about IT!
| LatteLazy wrote:
| We need as many ways to theoretically cut emissions as possible.
| That way, no one way will ever have to be chosen by a majority of
| people. So we will never have to actually do any of them. And we
| can keep polluting but pretend "it's not my fault because I
| supported <insert random niche idea>".
|
| No one wants to admit they are happy to just ruin everything. So
| we all need to pretend we want action. But in order to prevent
| any action happening we need to pick different things.
|
| The Nuclear people won't vote for solar expansion, the solar
| people will deny windmills work, the windmill people will refuse
| to condone nuclear. That way EVERYONE can claim the moral high
| ground AND use nice cheap, reliable coal. The same applies for
| everything (electric cars? No! Hydrogen!. Hydrogen? No, public
| transport! Public transport? No, electric cars!).
| gs17 wrote:
| > The Nuclear people won't vote for solar expansion, the solar
| people will deny windmills work, the windmill people will
| refuse to condone nuclear.
|
| I have only ever seen the last of these outside of people
| selling something.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| Go look at any HN article on either and you will find people
| talking about wind farms being ugly, being intermittent,
| making noise, killing birds etc.
|
| The point being that no solution is perfect and by refusing
| any imperfect solution we get what we really want: no action.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| I understand why you feel demotivated by all of this negative
| discourse and constant speculation on better technology. That
| said,
|
| > electric cars? No!
|
| The Model Y was the best selling car[0] in the world in Q1!
| Isn't that a positive fact :)
|
| Six Flags in California now has solar installed at 2 of its
| theme parks, offsetting 3000 homes worth of electricity! Isn't
| that a positive fact :)
|
| There are many other stories like this, you just have to look
| :)
|
| > So we will never have to actually do any of them.
|
| I agree we can do more, but focus on these positive outcomes!
| Stuff _IS_ happening and it is for the better!
|
| [0] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tesla-model-y-was-the-best-
| se...
|
| [1] https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2023/04/25/six-flags-
| announces-s...
| pfdietz wrote:
| The most interesting thing I saw in that article was the rotating
| air heater. Induce turbulence and shock waves in air and heat to
| very high temperature, without having a resistive heating element
| that has to be at least that hot.
|
| If you are going with electrical energy -> heat, you can get
| energy storage for free. It's much cheaper to store a kWh of high
| grade heat as sensible heat than it is to store a kWh of
| electrical energy in a battery. So electrification of cement
| production will be able to act as a large amount of dispatchable
| demand, simply by tacking on a heat store.
| Fyrezerk wrote:
| This article isn't very clear on the fact that CO2 can be re-
| injected back into the cement later in the production stage. I
| work with a startup using direct air capture tech to capture
| ambient CO2, store it, and inject it back into cement production.
| This has a massive offset in the CO2 produced during the
| calcination stage.
|
| https://www.carbon-direct.com/insights/direct-air-capture-to...
|
| There is also lots of work already underway on electrified
| calcination. Plenty of industries, such as carbon fiber
| production, already take advantage of electrified kilns in their
| production process. This tech just needs to be scaled up. As the
| article mentioned, cement manufacturing isn't exactly on the
| cutting edge of technology.
| megaman821 wrote:
| Won't cement slowly reabsorb half of the CO2 it released when
| making it (excluding the heating part)? What is the big
| advantage to making it reabsorb it early in its lifetime?
| waldothedog wrote:
| 1. That's a big half 2. The heating part releases an
| incredible amount of carbon
|
| (If I can dig up some solid links after dinner I'll edit the
| post. But Chris Magwood at The Endeavor Center has some
| fantastic reference material for lifecycle carbon
| intensiveness)
| labster wrote:
| How is the carbon bound in the concrete? I doubt CO2 bubbles
| would last very long, so is it just forming carbonates?
| Fyrezerk wrote:
| [flagged]
| NathanaelRea wrote:
| How much compressive stress is lost when you aerate concrete?
| Would consolidation with a concrete vibrator release the CO2
| like shaking a soda?
| Fyrezerk wrote:
| [flagged]
| pfdietz wrote:
| > This article isn't very clear on the fact that CO2 can be re-
| injected back into the cement later in the production stage.
|
| How can that work? The calcium oxide (or hydroxide) reacts with
| silica to make silicates, which bind things together. That CaO
| which reacted is not available to soak up CO2.
| Fyrezerk wrote:
| In this particular case the CO2 mineralization is taking
| place in a wastewater slurry that comes from washing out
| cement trucks. The carbonated slurry is then re-used as an
| additive by cement manufacturers.
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