Cemental Case

As soon as I read the article earlier this week, I knew that I was going to write about cement. It's not an inherently comical topic. I racked my brain: cement jokes, cement jokes ... nothing. I went online. Bupkus. Well, that's not quite true. I found a riddle that might amuse a small child (but doubtful, unless the sweet tyke is a bit on the dim-witted side). And I also found an LA Chapter Cacophony Society prank regarding concrete filled teddy bears (I do not recommend, but yeah, I laughed). So I give up. There just aren't many successful jokes about cement and concrete, and I suspect it's because they usually end up being in such pour form. But I'm going to stick with the topic, because this — and please read the article, it's brief — is a very cool development:

Constantz says he has invented a green cement that could eliminate the huge amounts of carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere by the manufacturers of the everyday cement used in concrete for buildings, roadways and bridges. I really got excited by this. It's personal.

For three years, I served as environmental manager for a Portland cement factory. Different aspects of that experience render it to this day, among the most satisfying and most grueling of my professional experiences. Picture it: there I am, an unapologetic and committed environmentalist, in the employ of a gray, dusty behemoth of an industrial facility, one whose voracious appetite for coal saw it go through 10 tons of the stuff. Each hour. 24/7. I would, on a daily basis, have to talk myself down from my inner emotional ledge, and it would invariably go something like this: this factory represents good paying manufacturing jobs in an area that would miss them dearly; and the finished product is of critical importance.

The blessing/curse of being one of those overly rounded, liberal arts types is that I can simultaneously hold two or more seemingly incompatible truths, such as these: 1) We have a huge infrastructure backlog to tend to. Cement and concrete are necessary. 2) Traditional means of making the stuff generate huge amounts of greenhouse gas (some of it from the fuel, but mostly of it from the chemistry of transforming the limestone). So, if this guy's development turns out to be the real deal, it could be a game-changer. And it embodies the sort of designed symbiosis that Paul Hawken and other leading ecological thinkers have written about that point the way toward a more sensible economy. Guilty as charged: I think closed loops are sexy as hell. Some people swear by raw oysters. Perhaps I need to get out more, maybe hit the sidewalks — and, hey! Would you look at that: They're made of concrete! Woo hoo, parTAY!