美国国家公共电台 NPR--Can a new concrete mixture help reduce the construction industry's carbon footprint?

Can a new concrete mixture help reduce the construction industry's carbon footprint?

Transcript¹

A data center in DeKalb, Illinois, is the testing ground for a new sustainable concrete. Is this greenwashing or can new mixtures contribute to reducing the construction industry's carbon footprint?

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Concrete is everywhere, right? We walk on it, drive on it, build our houses on it. But producing the ubiquitous construction material makes up a significant portion of global greenhouse gases that are emitted each year. Now researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign think they might be one step closer to greener concrete. Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco from member station WNIJ explains.

JUANPABLO RAMIREZ-FRANCO, BYLINE²: Ryan Cialdella is sitting in the Ozinga concrete laboratory based out of the ready-mix supplier's Chicago Chinatown location. The company's characteristic red-and-white-striped concrete trucks are coming in as soon as others are leaving. It's a busy day. But Cialdella says underneath³ it all, there's big changes coming to the industry.

RYAN CIALDELLA: The days of making concrete with just straight cement are gone. They're a thing of the past.

RAMIREZ-FRANCO: Cialdella explains that making concrete is relatively⁴ easy. You mix gravel⁵, sand, water, cement, and there you have it, the basic recipe behind the planet's most-consumed material after water - concrete. But Cialdella says there's been a lot of interest around reducing the amount of cement used in any given mix, as it's by far the most carbon-intensive ingredient in concrete.

CIALDELLA: When you look at global emissions⁶ and the amount of cement that's produced worldwide, that's where you get that large number - 6 to 8% of greenhouse gas emissions from the cement industries.

RAMIREZ-FRANCO: The Ozinga laboratory tested a new low-carbon concrete mixture, developed by researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Meta, that emits 40% less carbon emissions compared to the standard regional mix. Then the mix was deployed⁷ in non-critical areas of a Meta data center in DeKalb, Ill.

Lav Varshney helped develop the artificial intelligence models behind the novel concrete mixtures and teaches computer engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

LAV VARSHNEY: Data centers are just very large buildings made of concrete. So that, just by itself, implies that they require a lot of embodied⁸ carbon.

RAMIREZ-FRANCO: Nishant Garg teaches civil engineering at the U of I, and he's another collaborator⁹ on this concrete project. He says the world produces about 4 billion tons of cement - a key ingredient in concrete - every year, and that adds up.

NISHANT GARG: And you can say roughly for every ton of cement that we make, we release about 0.8 tons of CO2.

RAMIREZ-FRANCO: So reducing the emissions from concrete is a necessity if Meta wants to hit its net-zero goal.

Amruta Sudhalkar works on the design and sustainability of the Meta data centers. She says that each one is huge - about a million square feet. Nationally, there are 17 of them. Three expansions were just recently announced at sites in Arizona, Ohio and here in DeKalb. Sudhalkar says that the concrete pilot in Illinois has been a success but that the low-carbon formulations aren't one-size-fits-all.

AMRUTA SUDHALKAR: And so you might see variation in how much carbon savings¹⁰ you're realizing, depending on the location and the quality and the availability of the materials that we're dealing¹¹ with.

RAMIREZ-FRANCO: Nishant Garg says concrete is here to stay. It's central to contemporary life - used for building roads, sidewalks, bridges and foundations. So it's not going anywhere.

GARG: We wanted to build, let's say, a data center in this case. But then it was built with 5% less CO2 emissions. I think that's a worthy¹² cause because saying that, let's not build it or let's just build it with, you know, the maximum CO2 emissions - I don't think those are sustainable approaches.

RAMIREZ-FRANCO: The way he and other researchers see it, we just haven't been producing concrete in the smartest way, based on a climate change point of view. But that could soon change.

For NPR News, I'm Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco in DeKalb.

(SOUNDBITE OF EMANCIPATOR'S "RAPPAHANNOCK")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 underneath   

adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面

参考例句：

• Working underneath the car is always a messy job.在汽车底下工作是件脏活。
• She wore a coat with a dress underneath.她穿着一件大衣，里面套着一条连衣裙。

4 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

5 gravel   

n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石

参考例句：

• We bought six bags of gravel for the garden path.我们购买了六袋碎石用来铺花园的小路。
• More gravel is needed to fill the hollow in the drive.需要更多的砾石来填平车道上的坑洼。

6 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

7 deployed   

（尤指军事行动）使展开( deploy的过去式和过去分词 )； 施展； 部署； 有效地利用

参考例句：

• Tanks have been deployed all along the front line. 沿整个前线已部署了坦克。
• The artillery was deployed to bear on the fort. 火炮是对着那个碉堡部署的。

8 embodied   

v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• a politician who embodied the hopes of black youth 代表黑人青年希望的政治家
• The heroic deeds of him embodied the glorious tradition of the troops. 他的英雄事迹体现了军队的光荣传统。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 collaborator   

n.合作者，协作者

参考例句：

• I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作，帮我的忙。
• His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。

10 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

11 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

12 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。