Manufacturing in all its forms contributes almost a third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and concrete, steel and plastic top the list, explains Bill Gates in his recently released book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster. He breaks it down like this: Making things (eg cement, steel, plastic) contributes 31 per cent of emissions, followed by plugging in (electricity) at 27 per cent, growing things (plants & animals) at 19 per cent, getting around (planes, trucks, cargo ships) at 16 per cent, and keeping warm and cool (heating, cooling and refrigeration) at 7 per cent.
Gates writes that while things like electricity get the most attention, cement is still one of the toughest problems to solve as no solutions currently exist to reduce emissions to zero.
LC3 is no exception, but even a 40 per cent reduction would make a massive and immediate impact on emissions, says cement research and director of EPFL’s Laboratory of Construction Materials, Karen Scrivener.
“The global impact of this technology cannot be underestimated. Here we have one single technology which can be implemented today which can really save at least one per cent of world CO2,” she says.
“And the timing is very important because in fact we are talking about a total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere to slow down climate change, so its much more important to act quickly to save CO2 today, than maybe have some wonder solution that can only be applied in fifty years.”
EPFL has been able to scale up LC3 development, testing and global collaboration thanks to funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation through its Global Programme in Climate Change.