- Re: The numbers are wrong - sticking to cement, yes, but read on... Archived Message
Posted by John Monro
on August 3, 2019, 9:22 pm, in reply to "The numbers are wrong"
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I stand corrected Mack. My figures for cement are not wrong, but you're right cement is only a proportion of the actual concrete that's there and steel, per tonne, is associated with even higher CO2 per tonne. I just took the figures from a quora explanation on the internet on building construction. But you'll note I didn't include this steel or the glass or at the plastic or anything else in the building. Here is the true figure for the just one skyscraper eg. example it noted was the Leadenhall Building in London’s financial district, known for its cheese grater silhouette. Its construction required emissions of 92,210 tons of carbon, the council said in a report citing data from the building’s developer, British Land Co..... About 60% of that came from steel and cement. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-06-20/what-s-wrong-with-modern-buildings-everything-starting-with-how-they-re-made Now note that's 92,000 tonnes of carbon, not CO2, which figure would be 3.7 times as much.(That is if the reporter hasn't confused C and CO2, a lot of people do) OK, I'm not able to directly compare the sizes of the two building but even so this figure suggests my guess wasn't too far off the mark and if the comment re carbon, not CO2, is correct, may even be a significant underestimate. In addition, I deliberately didn't include the likely continuing CO2 emissions in a large skyscraper, especially glass fronted ones, which most are nowadays, in heating and cooling. They are known to be quite energy inefficient. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/28/ban-all-glass-skscrapers-to-save-energy-in-climate-crisis So whilst I accept your critique of my figures, and thank you for that information, it is obvious it in no way affects my argument or reason for posting. The sort of thinking that built this skyscraper and rationalised it's totally ridiculous claim to some sort of sustainability is a sort of cognitive dissonance, if that is the appropriate phrase, that will literally eventually kill us. So yes, I can continue to claim we're ####ed as you so eloquently put it. Cheers, |