It would probably be in Portland’s best interest to take on things like their rising crime rate. Neighborhood Scout rates them as a 3, meaning they are safer than just 3% of U.S. cities. That is not good. Not good at all. They’re still down a lot of police officers, and more are leaving. The constant violent protests. The massive homelessness. And so much more. No, they go with
How Portland is fighting climate change by tackling concrete
With concrete used throughout the city of Portland, city staff and leaders are re-thinking how concrete usage impacts the city’s carbon footprint.
According to an announcement by the city, chief engineers from Portland’s infrastructure bureaus approved recommendations to add specific concrete requirements for all city construction projects.
The recommendation is apart of Portland’s commitment to climate action and climate leadership, added the press release.
“Most of us don’t think much about the concrete beneath our feet,” said Stacey Foreman, who leads the project as the city’s sustainable procurement program manager. “As the most widely used building material in the world, it has a significant environmental impact. Portland is a leader in establishing these thresholds and in our approach of bringing multiple stakeholders together to develop them.”
The city explained that the largest component of concrete is cement. This means cement production alone generates 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the announcement.
So, what are they going to do?
“When considering all city projects that use concrete, the annual reduction is significant. The city uses concrete for a high volume of projects, including sidewalks and ADA ramps, bicycle and pedestrian paths, fire hydrant pads, retaining walls for parks, and large infrastructure projects such as the Water Bureau’s Bull Run filtration facility and the Bureau of Environmental Services’ wastewater and stormwater infrastructure,” said the press release. “By adopting higher sustainability standards for concrete, bureaus will accelerate their use of concrete that is durable and that has been manufactured with lower climate impacts.”
So, more sustainable blah blah blah. You know what this really means? More expensive construction. It is already super expensive in Portland. This will drive up the cost of driveways and home foundations. And lots of little things, like the pad an AC sits on. And then the price of public works. Oh, and then commercial buildings, for which the companies will simply build outside of the city limits. Eroding the tax base. Good job, Warmists.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/west-hollywood-votes-los-angeles-county-crime
#MoreArtLessCrime
Bwaha! Lolgf
Yes, concrete is the most widely used construction material in the world, and yes, the production of Portland cement has a serious impact on CO2 generation.
But until someone develops an alternative to Portland cement in the production of concrete, either Portland cement will continue to be produced and used, because it’s needed in a modern society.
Sixteen stories is about the limit for masonry construction, and even with that, the production of masonry cements — basically brick and block mortar — also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. We can build with wood, but the amount needed would lead to more massive deforestation. Asphalt can replace concrete in roads — but not bridges — but it has its own carbon impact, does not last anywhere as long as concrete, and being much darker, absorbs more and reflects less solar heat. It even has greater outdoor lighting requirements at night because asphalt does not reflect light as well.
Even modern home construction, much of which can use wood, still requires concrete for foundations, sidewalks, driveways and garage floors.
Of course, we could just abandon modern life in toto, and move back into caves and tents, but it might make it more difficult for the warmunists to plug in their computers.
You completely neglected to mention the use of recycled plastic bottles as a building material of choice.
As the warmunists progress with their loonacy, we’ll lose masonry construction as the production of brick, block, and mortar consume lots of FF (natural gas) in their production. So it’s back the caves and thatch huts.
You can build an all steel bridge, but asphalt paving, a by-product of FF production, is much better to drive on. Of course, without FF production, there are no asphalt shingles, no plastic bottles, rubber tires, etc. Mobility would be severely limited.
These narrow minded warmunists are starting to get irritating.
I thought there was a method of channeling CO2 into cinder blocks, thus capturing a large amount of the substance. Any insight on that process?
Dave, I’m not knowledgeable on the magic involved to please the CO2ists.
However, Concrete Masonry Units are molded or extruded out of a carefully designed portland cement concrete. They provide some of the benefits of concrete construction with speed of construction, lower cost, and design flexibility. Cinders haven’t been used as an aggregate in many, many years. Cinders are typically reactive and generally yield poor concrete. Fly ash is used in some mix designs. The term ‘clinker brick’ etc. comes from the lime clinkers used in the manufacture of portland cement.
Thanks, the article that I saw was out of Australia. My own feeling is that carbon concerns are a large amount of bullshit. If you look at the astrophysics information, it is apparent the strange things are going on with the sun and magnetic waves. That seems more logical, but then you can’t have communistic world government if you produce the real explanation.
Dave, I agree about CO2. My ‘theory’ is that CO2 was tagged to be the ‘fall element’ for the warmunists because it is a relatively minor atmospheric component, but also a component of combustion, respiration, etc. Just my thought.
There is some irony in Portland attacking the Portland cement industry!
Yes.