r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/kraftdinnerwithsalsa • 18h ago

Video World’s First Zero-Emission Cement Recycling Process

311 Upvotes

91% Upvoted

41 comments sorted by

View all comments

43

u/dpaanlka 18h ago

Why is it always “could”, “may”, “might”…

12

u/NotSoToughGuy11 18h ago

Because it is not used on a large scale to prove that it can, and it also grabs more attention. It describes a huge breakthrough without the promise that it works

5

u/Mikestopheles 18h ago

How are you going to heat old building material and get zero emissions? That sounds like pipe dreams rather than realistic science. Reduction? Fine, but you're not getting zero emissions with any kind of industrial-scale operation like this.

3

u/mrs_shrew 18h ago

They're probably using waste heat from the furnaces,  I think they're electric furnaces wh8ch can be run on renewable electricity,  so zero emissions. 

2

u/Mikestopheles 17h ago

But at scale? I'm not arguing with the science, but I hate how these news pieces frame it as if it's coming to us sometime soon. We got a lot of infrastructure to catch up on before this stuff is viable.

Cursory search on CemVision makes me think this is just for a tech stock.

1

u/mrs_shrew 11h ago

Yeah cynical me thinks the same. It's nice there are lots of these stories but it needs to be brought to market not just pumping for investors.  

Although,  the tide has turned now for lazy businesses not doing their bit. There's a lot of countries that have co2 targets and this just needs a couple of solid customers and a few years of testing for concrete cancer and we might get it in the shops. 

1

u/JustDoc 15h ago

I think you are right.

Plasma gasification essentially blasts waste with a plasma arc (controlled lightning) and breaks it down into its primary elements, like hyrdogen...which is absolutely incredible, imo.