Pieces of the Puzzle #2: Cement

Today I was reading Climate Change: What Everyone Needs To Know by Joseph Romm. He mentioned that the manufacture of cement is a major source of CO2 emissions. I’m sure I had heard this before, but had never run across any kind of discussion or explanation. Coincidentally, this BBC article appeared in my Twitter feed, which explains how traditional cement-making generates CO2, and talks about emerging technologies that might provide alternative methods of creating cement that could address the CO2 problem. A little more detail about the chemistry involved is in this blog post from the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Since I didn’t know, maybe you don’t either, so I thought I’d share.