Issue 017 and the last issue of the year (and volume one) of my newsletter In Abeyance is now out. The title of this issue is ‘Green Concrete’.

@kaa I’d seen something in the last month or so about someone testing solar for providing power for concrete production and thought of your prior issue mentioning how concrete was so power-hungry and CO2-unfriendly—and now I see you covering the solar people in this IA.

Also, the part about Roman concrete was fascinating on its own.

@kaa This is an excellent article. I grew up along the old Lincoln Highway here in the US. Specifically right next to the Ideal Section and what I noticed was the older concrete sections of that highway seemed to last so much longer than the newer concrete sections which were already starting to crumble. Later, somebody told me that the concrete mix used in the pre-World War II years had a lot more Portland Cement in it than later mixes. Indeed, in my home town on that Ideal Section, we were still driving on the original 1920's cement well into the 1980's when it finally got replaced. They really did make things "built to last" back then.

And that has been my observation to this day: most concrete used in the US today, particularly for roads, seems to be of the minimum quality they can get away with which means it is soom crumbling after 20 years. This doesn't seem very "green" to me and has to have a huge impact on resources.

Subscribed to your newsletter and can't wait to read the archives too.

@smokey Great spot! The idea of this months issue came from that point. I wanted to understand why the process was so bad for us and what was being done to better the situation.

The part about Roman concrete was great to discover as well. Stumbling onto these little gems of history really makes me smile. I think my brother reads the newsletter just for the intros :).

@bradenslen thanks for subscribing! Really hope you enjoy the archive, it’s been one of the funnest things I’ve done this year for sure.

Re concrete, I can’t help but imagine that the scale at which things need to be constructed in the US play a role in the shortcuts being taken. The concrete being used in Denmark is bunker grade it seems (at least that’s the impression I get anecdotally from trying to put my curtains up and talking to some of the guys in the office who have experienced the same thing).

@kaa enjoyable as always.

I think you should consider joining the Infrastructure Club slack: infrastructureclub.co.uk