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Climate One

Turning Down the Heat: Decarbonizing Cement and Steel

Climate One

Climate One

News Commentary, Earth Sciences, Social Sciences, Science, News

4.7585 Ratings

🗓️ 22 July 2022

⏱️ 53 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Along with aviation, the construction industry is one of the hardest to decarbonize sectors in the global economy. Cement and steel production together are responsible for about 15% of global CO2 emissions. But look around our modern world and it’s hard to imagine doing without these materials. Carbon-negative cement has been talked about for years, and innovations in steel production show promise as well, but is either technology ready for primetime? And what about replacing these materials with engineered wood, which could also store carbon for decades? Guests:  John Fernández, Professor of Architecture, MIT Chathurika Gamage, Manager, Climate Aligned Industries, RMI Radhika Lalit, Chief Strategy Officer, RMI For complete show notes, visit our website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Getting instant insights is amazing.

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But if there are too many data points, it can be hard to see what works.

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0:30.3

This is Climate One. I'm Greg Dalton. Together, cement and steel account for about 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

0:39.5

But look around our modern world, and it's hard to imagine building much of anything substantial

0:44.7

without them.

0:45.9

Carbon emissions from the build environment is still going up.

0:49.0

Buildings are more efficient, but there are more of them every year.

0:53.6

Technology exists for making lower carbon cement and steel, but at a premium price.

0:59.5

The industry really needs to stop its game. They didn't have incentives earlier to optimize

1:04.2

for carbon emissions. They were optimizing for something, and that was cost.

1:08.3

So how do we eliminate emissions from two of the world's most climate-destroying industries?

1:13.2

We have the technology to do that today, so we really need to start thinking about how we scale

1:17.7

that deployment.

1:18.7

Turning down the heat, decarbonizing cement and steel.

1:22.9

Up next on Climate One.

1:26.6

Along with aviation, the construction industry is one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize

1:31.6

in the global economy.

...

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