“It went kind of viral, inasmuch as a materials science paper can captivate the internet.” NPR’s Emily Kwong and KimBerly McCoy join Hub researcher Admir Masic and Linda Seymour, Ph.D. to discuss groundbreaking research revealing the mechanisms behind ancient Roman self-healing concrete.
Listen to the interview.
“If we are to meet climate goals such as the Paris Agreement, which demands that we reach carbon-neutrality by 2050 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, we — as well as industry and governmental stakeholders — must come together to take a hard look at the roads we use every day and work to reduce their life cycle emissions.”
Click to learn why the path to a carbon neutral pavement network demands regionally specific policies, widespread investment to help implement decarbonization solutions, and above all, collaboration between industry and government stakeholders.
Hessam AzariJafari presented at Payette’s YDC Knowledge Series today, discussing the significance of carbon uptake, an intrinsic process of concrete, in assessing the environmental footprint of buildings and infrastructure. Architectural decisions significantly influence the ability of a given concrete structure to sequester CO2.
In our new paper in the Springer Nature Group International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Deputy Director Hessam AzariJafari, Director Randolph Kirchain, and Fengdi Guo modeled embodied impact of future pavements materials demand for the U.S. road network.
Lessons learned:
1) When currently scaled solutions are accelerated and adequate carbon capture technologies are available, carbon neutrality can be achieved by 2050.
2) GHG emissions from pavement construction materials are equally shared between local authorities, state DOTs, and the federal government.
3) Considering the performance limits, more than half of the material’s decarbonization way can be achieved without any innovative technologies.
4) Carbon capture and renewable energy sources are key enablers for achieving carbon neutrality. Without fully renewable energy sources, it is not possible to achieve carbon-neutral concrete and asphalt at the current efficiency level of carbon capture technologies.
5) Alternative concrete binders, mixtures optimization, and RAP are among the lowest-cost solutions for materials decarbonization.
6) In addition to construction materials, achieving carbon neutrality in the pavement life cycle requires more than just materials. A range of use-phase components, including albedo, pavement-vehicle interaction, carbon uptake, and end-of-life opportunities, can provide significant opportunities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the life cycle of pavements.
Urban communities have a higher risk of flooding than current models suggest, making it more vital than ever to ensure that our pavements, buildings, and infrastructure are built to withstand the stresses of future flooding events.
Hurricane repairs disproportionately burden socially vulnerable communities according to new research by Ipek Bensu Manav, the first quantitative analysis of its kind. The research brief prompts stakeholders to distribute their mitigation grants carefully and invest in stronger construction to better protect vulnerable communities.
Due to glass’ valuable role in advancing civilization and global sustainability, the United Nations deemed 2022 the “International Year of Glass.” Glass is used intensively. In fact, approximately 12 million tons of waste glass are generated in the United States annually, representing more than 4% of municipal solid waste. Unfortunately, on average, just 33% of waste glass is recycled for new glass production in the U.S. One key challenge to glass recycling is its low monetary value, currently averaging around $11/ton.
Read more in our research brief.
Extreme heat is the deadliest natural hazard in the United States.
Between 1992 and 2021, it killed an average of 148 people every year. In the same 30-year period, floods killed about 88 annually while hurricanes killed 45 yearly.
This figure is likely an underestimate, as potential problems have been found with the way deaths due to extreme heat are counted. For instance, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) originally counted 200 deaths due to a heat wave that struck the Pacific Northwest in June 2021, but has since amended its description of the event to note the potential for hundreds of excess deaths during the period.
Read more in The Hill.
In Florida, June typically marks the beginning of hurricane season. Preparation for a storm may appear as otherworldly as it is routine: businesses and homes board up windows and doors, bottled water is quick to sell out, and public buildings cease operations to serve as emergency shelters.
What happens next may be unpredictable. If things take a turn for the worse, myriad homes may be leveled. A 2019 Congressional Budget Office report estimated that hurricane-related wind damage causes $14 billion in losses to the residential sector annually.
However, new research led by Ipek Bensu Manav, an MIT graduate student in civil and environmental engineering and research assistant at MIT’s Concrete Sustainability Hub, suggests that the value of mitigating this wind damage through stronger construction methods may be significantly underestimated.
“My job is basically flooding Cambridge,” says Katerina “Katya” Boukin, a graduate student in civil and environmental engineering at MIT and the MIT Concrete Sustainability Hub’s resident expert on flood simulations.
You can often find her fine-tuning high-resolution flood risk models for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts, or talking about hurricanes with fellow researcher Ipek Bensu Manav.
Flooding represents one of the world’s gravest natural hazards. Extreme climate events inducing flooding, like severe storms, winter storms, and tropical cyclones, caused an estimated $128.1 billion of damages in 2021 alone.
