Concrete is a material where small mistakes can cause lasting damage. Heavy use of concrete in hot climates requires a ton of air conditioning. In cold climates, small mistakes lead to a lot of cracks which makes heating hard. Old Soviet brutalist architecture had a lot of teeny tiny mistakes in the concrete which makes them difficult to live in and expensive to heat and cool.
The good thing is we’re working on it. Concrete usage isn’t going to slow down any time soon, but adjusting the chemistry to be less polluting or (ideally) carbon neutral would have massive benefits to ecology.
Concrete is a material where small mistakes can cause lasting damage. Heavy use of concrete in hot climates requires a ton of air conditioning. In cold climates, small mistakes lead to a lot of cracks which makes heating hard. Old Soviet brutalist architecture had a lot of teeny tiny mistakes in the concrete which makes them difficult to live in and expensive to heat and cool.
Concrete is also hugely polluting from a carbon emissions perspective
3rd largest emission source behind transportation and power gen iirc
The good thing is we’re working on it. Concrete usage isn’t going to slow down any time soon, but adjusting the chemistry to be less polluting or (ideally) carbon neutral would have massive benefits to ecology.