Energy Musings - April 15, 2024

The push to de-carbonize the economy has many challenges. One is cement, the second-most used material after water. It is carbon emissions-intensive, but a critical material. Cleaning it up is hard.

Decarbonizing Building Materials Is A Challenge

We have previously written about efforts to use wood in buildings rather than steel and cement to build them more environmentally friendly.  We have also followed the efforts of scientists at several U.S. universities to create new cement products to eliminate or seriously reduce the carbon dioxide emitted in producing them.  The cement industry is responsible for about 8% of global emissions annually. 

The latest effort to develop a cleaner cement is a company – Fortera – in Northern California.  It rose from the ashes of Calera, one of the first companies to convert carbon dioxide into cement starting in 2007.  However, after pouring 100 tons of low-carbon cement into California office buildings and sidewalks, the company failed financially in 2014.  Fortera was founded in 2019 by several former Calera employees familiar with the technology of Calera.