A Concrete Solution To Pollution 276
PreacherTom writes "With concerns over global warming and pollution control reaching an all-time high, an Italian company has developed an interesting solution. It is called TX Active: a concrete that literally breaks down pollutants in the air. The effects are significant: 'In large cities with persistent pollution problems caused by car emissions, smoke from heating systems, and industrial activities, both the company and outside experts estimate that covering 15% of all visible urban surfaces (painting the walls, repaving the roads) with products containing TX Active could abate pollution by up to 50%.' Even more significant is that the cost is only 30% over that of normal concrete. Remarkable."
30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmentalist (Score:5, Insightful)
Reduce at the source (Score:5, Insightful)
For example in cars we could promote less intial generation (perhaps even regulate fuel consumption),
Then before it even leaves the car we run it through some type of catalyst to convert it to less toxic pollutants, or filter out small particles.
Even better is if we had some sort of On Board Diagnostic system to monitor everything, like make sure there are no leaks between the engine and the filters.
This seems like an expensive air purifier, though one that might help with the existing problem and be very profitable to sell.
My biggest question is why have this in concrete? Other than the manufacturer sells concrete.
The summary is also wrong, it isn't 30% more, they claim $120 for a 5 story building. You must have cheap paint if that's 30% more than plain concrete.
30% should be subsidised (Score:3, Insightful)
If anything, it proves better technology is the cure to problems caused by technology (:
Re: Reduce at the source (Score:5, Insightful)
Controlling pollution at the source is nice, but may not be enough. Emission laws for cars have been hugely successful, but there are still plenty of smog sources out there, not all of which can be cleaned up economically.
We used to have huge forests that act as pollution sinks. If we can use our urban jungle to do the same, why not?
Great! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
concrete=as pollution efficient as a burning rig (Score:1, Insightful)
If you do not have the facts in your hands to be able to read critically some corporate PR, at least have the decency to not parrot it on
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:3, Insightful)
In Hungary motorways suddently cost 2-3x more after 2002 than before. Some sinister people point out that there was a change of government in 2002, but I'm sure there is no connection.
Re:Europe out to make the cash... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Europe out to make the cash... (Score:3, Insightful)
and do nothing in return (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who sponsors the idea of using "carbon offsets" is doing nothing but transfering wealth from one entity to another. It has nothing to do with protecting the environment and should be laughed at when mentioned.
Re: Reduce at the source (Score:4, Insightful)
Any suggestions? "Solutions" like "stop driving" or "use mass transit" are not acceptable to the public in most places. You can't even say "use centralized power generation and electric cars" because that has several downsides as well: limited range, vast increase in the use of heavy-metal batteries (unless those little ultracapacitor things come online any time soon), centralized generation is a single point of failure, and other side effects.
Remember, none of the pollution "problem" is technical; we have the technology that would fix all the problems. The difficulty is in the politics, not the technology.
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:5, Insightful)
The concrete will be quite common, because of a simple fact corporations don't build roads, governments do, and they are about as hyper anal about the environment as they come, reguardless of what the media says. Lot's of money coming from the federal government has alot of strings attached to it. Cities get alot of flack over polution and loose alot of funding over it. Getting people out of their cars has been a non-starter to reduce polution, but getting the numbers to drop with a special concrete or paint is simplicity in itself, when compared to light rail and other polution fighting schemes.
There is another large group in the US that is willing to pay quite a bit of money for this technology, and that is parents. Ask any parent with an asthmatic child if they would be willing to do something as simple as repaint their home inside and out to better the life of their suffering child and you'll most likely see them jumping in their car and hurrying off to the hardware store before you can even get an answer. Most of the polution in the US, as in greater than 50%, comes not from industry but people. It is the average person whose mind has to be changed, not the corporations. Most people are more than willing to make simple changes in their lives or part with a reasonable amount of money to do so, especially if it will have a real impact on the life of their child.
I wouldn't be surprised to see this paint become mandatory to use at schools and public buildings with just a few years. Even if it didn't or ever get used by corporations, there are 300,000,000 in the US that live in a lot of houses. It wouldn't take very many to start making a noticeable impact on the polution.
Re:Global Warming? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Global Warming? (Score:2, Insightful)
Too much marketing, not enough facts (Score:4, Insightful)
Second, TFA fails to mention that no material is capable of absorbing a constant rate of some compound for as long as anyone cares to measure. In the case of porland cement it does indeed absorb CO2 but only in the surface. The CO2 absorption doesn't penetrate more than a couple of cm beyond the element's surface and as time passes, the rate of absorption decreases until it doesn't absorb anything anymore. So TFA doesn't state what does it mean by 30%. Is it the total amount absorbed? Is it peak absorption rate? Is it the time window where the compound stays unsaturated? What is it? That information is vital to evaluate if it justifies the added cost.
Third. What effect does that compound has on the concrete's mechanical properties? Does it make it more fragile? More permeable? Less resistant?
Fourth, TFA states that it only costs 30% more. Only? How do you justify a 30% increase on building costs just because someone decided to use a useless compound due to some marketing gimmick?
As I see it, this product is useless. It is tailored to ignorant people who are willing to spend lots of money on something just because someone decided to slap a "green" sticker on it. There are far more efficient and proven ways to absorb CO2 and other greenhouse gases than using some "green" product on concrete. For example, invest on green spaces, on passive heating/cooling systems, on energy-efficient lighting solutions, etc... Heck, instead of spending 30% of the building costs on funny concrete why not invest that money on some eco-friendly project? All those suggestions do a whole lot more for the environmnet than some snake oil product to add to the concrete mixture.
Re:Global Warming? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course this is in addition to the millions of people air pollution kills every year which tends to go unreported.
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss "big companies" as pure evil. Sometimes, they do care, because they have to.
Heh. Can't really see it happening (Score:4, Insightful)
Heh. Sorry, I just can't see it happening like that. (Except maybe if their PR department says that that claim would improve the corporate image or something.)
Most of the corporations don't really give a fuck about the environment or social responsibility or even ethics. Their _only_ legal responsibility is to make more money for the shareholder. And they'll do just that. If doing the ecologically sane, socially responsible, or ethical thing would cause 1% less profits, it's their legal _duty_ to _not_ do it.
The industry (as a whole) has a long history of doing anything up to (and including) dumping poisons into rivers or into the atmosphere. It's been perfectly happy to cause health problems all the way to cancer and poisoning in the nearby towns (both mining and manufacturing did that), in its own workers (see the fact that they knew since the end of the 19'th century that asbestos tends to cause lung cancer), or even in its customers (see the tobacco industry.)
The only thing that _ever_ dragged it kicking and screaming into cleaning up its act was the law. At some point society decided, "no, sorry, we're not having _that_ shit dumped into our town's river and ground water. Put a filter on it or we'll make it even more expensive to ignore us." And even then invariably the industry has put up quite a fight, including astroturfing, lobbying, PR lies campaigns, threatening to fire everyone and move somewhere else, etc.
Sadly I just don't see it working any differently this time. Now you're asking them to pay extra (in most cases having an ugly building _is_ paying extra, in an indirect way: less rent, lost customers, public image, whatever) not just to clean their own act, but basically to clean everyone else's pollution too. Expect a heartfelt laugh in the face if you tried convincing someone to volunteer to do that. Either the law forces them to, or it just won't happen.
It doesn't make the BUILDING 30% more expensive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Heh. Can't really see it happening (Score:3, Insightful)
Why do companies have a responsibility to absorb pollution made by other people?
You tirade might have carried some weight if you'd committed yourself to rebuilding your house/garden with this concrete.
Re:Heh. Can't really see it happening (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:3, Insightful)
How much a solution is going to cost versus another one isn't (or shouldn't be) calculated only on the basis of the concrete's cost, but also on the other costs or savings that a certain solution is going to induce.
In the case of this special concrete, the city would probably see a net saving by not having to spend money to counter pollution in other ways and, since there would be a net decrease of health expenses as well, countries where health services are paid by the state (with people's taxes) would greatly benefit too. Add to that that the less money you spend for health issues, the more you have left to spend for other things, the more you drive the economy.
Re:Heh. Can't really see it happening (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:30% is still a fair amount for nonenvironmental (Score:3, Insightful)
Is it as simple as that? If it is, when the city asks me to bid to build 10 miles of road, I'll submit a bid to build only 5 miles of road instead. I'll come in at half the price of everyone else and be awarded the contract every time.
I guess the reason that wouldn't work is that there are certain requirements that must be met for your bid to be accepted. If this special concrete is a requirement, everyone who submits a bid will have to build the road will have to bid based on using that type of concrete. So the bidding process isn't really relevant. What's relevant is whether the city (or county or whatever authority is building the road) will be willing to make it a requirement when they know it means the bids will come in higher.
For what it's worth, I would guess the cost of the concrete only makes up something like 25% of the cost of building a road. You have to have a bunch of machinery to pour the concrete, people to run it, not to mention stuff like surveying, lots of site preparation (moving earth and grading things), drainage, signs, traffic signals, stripes and reflectors, and so on. If concrete makes up 25% of the cost of building the road, then that 30% premium on special concrete becomes only a 7.5% premium on the cost of the whole job, which might be easier to swallow.